Reference no: EM132635559

Assignment: Aromatherapy with Lavender Essential Oil

The current healthcare environment is fast-paced and faces myriad challenges. With this status, healthcare providers experience physical and mental exhaustion that increases the odds of committing medication errors. Therefore, nurses serving in surgical units can greatly benefit from stress-relieving techniques. Aromatherapy is one of the alternative treatment interventions that use natural plant extracts to improve the health of the spirit, body, and mind (Takagi et al., 2019). Although the holistic health benefits of aromatherapy are well understood, this intervention is not adequately employed by the nurses serving in the surgical unit to relieve stress and anxiety.

PICOT Question

Among med/surgical nurses does the use of aromatherapy with Lavender essential oil improve nurses' anxiety and reduce medication errors as compared to no aromatherapy within six weeks?

Workplace stress is a constant occupational hazard costing the United States more than 150 billion dollars annually in stress related problems (Khamisa et al., 2015). Stress is defined as a process in which environmental demands strain an organism's adaptive capacity resulting in both psychological demands as well as biological changes that could place at risk for illness (Cohen et al., 1995).

In order to implement my PICOT question capstone project, I am going to utilize a pre and post aromatherapy survey among nursing staff, with the use of a convenience sample method. Furthermore, for a total of six weeks I will have a diffuser running nonstop with Lavender Essential oil at the nurse's station of the medical surgical unit I work at Baptist Medical Center Jacksonville. Hence, data reporting nurse's perceived stress will be gathered pre and post aromatherapy.

References: Takagi, C., Nakagawa, S., Hirata, N., Ohta, S., & Shimoeda, S. (2019). Evaluating the effect of aromatherapy on a stress marker in healthy subjects. Journal of pharmaceutical health care and sciences, 5(1), 18.

Khamisa, N., Oldenburg, B., Peltzer, K., Ilic, D., 2015. Work related stress, burnout, job satisfaction and general health of nurses. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 12, 652-666.

Cohen, S., Kessler, R., C., Gordon, L., U. (1995) Strategies for measuring stress in studies of psychiatric and physical disorders. In: Cohen S, Kessler RC, Gordon LU, editors. Measuring stress: A guide for Health and Social Scientists.