The Impacts of Informational Support and Essential Oil Use on Anxiety in Patients Undergoing Abdominal Surgery

Abstract

A patient's anxiety during abdominal surgery affects how fast the surgical wound heals, which could result in a prolonged hospital stay. Thus, this study aimed to compare the anxiety levels experienced by two groups of patients undergoing abdominal surgery: the ones receiving regular nursing care and those using essential oils during different stages such as preoperative, postoperative, and before returning home.  The samples included 44 people who had undergone abdominal surgery and were matched for age, sex, digestive system disorders, or type of surgery. Additionally, those mentioned were randomly divided into two groups of 22 each: the experimental group and the control group. While the control group received standard nursing care, the experimental group participated in the informational support program and the knowledge of essential oil usage.  The research instruments were 1) an informational support program and the application of essential oil during a preoperative stage, a postoperative stage, and before returning home, 2) a general and anxiety questionnaire, and 3) a patients’ understanding evaluation form during a preoperative stage (CVI=1.0, KR20 =.816), an operative stage (CVI=1.0, KR20 =.747), and a postoperative stage (CVI=1.0), as well as the stage before returning home (CVI=1.0). Moreover, the data were analyzed using percentages, means, and one-way repeated measures ANOVA.  According to the findings, there was no statistically significant difference in the mean scores for anxiety levels between the two groups during the preoperative and postoperative periods (P > 0.05). However, patients in the experimental group reported lower mean anxiety scores than those in the control group during the stage before going home and the post operation—at the .05 level with the statistical significance of (P 0.05). It was therefore possible to draw the conclusion that the application of essential oils and the informational support program significantly decreased mean anxiety scores.