The effects of aromatherapy massage on improvement of anxiety among patients receiving palliative care: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials

Anxiety in patients receiving palliative care is a noteworthy concern because it may affect their quality of life. Aromatherapy has been widely utilized to improve anxiety among patients receiving palliative care. To investigate the effectiveness of anxiety improvement in patients receiving palliative care by comparing the intervention group (aromatherapy massage) with the control group (common massage alone). A literature search was performed using PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE, and CINAHL for all related studies from inception through November 30, 2018 without restriction on language. A quantitative synthesis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted to compare the difference in effectiveness scores between the aromatherapy massage and only common massage groups by employing a random-effect model. We included three RCTs with a total of 160 participants (81 in the intervention group and 79 in the control group) in our systematic review and conducted a quantitative synthesis. The secondary data from the reviewed trials were then pooled using a random-effect model. Anxiety (mean difference = -2.60 [95% confidence interval: -7.82, 2.63], P = .33) was assessed using anxiety scores from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Compared with common massage alone, aromatherapy massage does not provide significant effectiveness of anxiety improvement among patients receiving palliative care.