The Effect of Music Therapy and Aromatherapy with Chamomile-Lavender Essential Oil on the Anxiety of Clinical Nurses: A Randomized and Double-Blind Clinical Trial

Nurses may be anxious due to critical and emergencies, and anxiety can affect their professional performance. Non-pharmacological interventions, as a safe method, can reduce anxiety. This study aimed to determine the effect of music therapy and aromatherapy with chamomile - lavender essential oil on the anxiety of clinical nurses. This was a randomized, double-blind clinical trial. One hundred twenty nurses from clinical wards of Besat Hospital in Sanandaj, Iran, were selected between 2018 and 2019 by purposeful sampling. The samples were randomly assigned to three groups with different interventions, namely music therapy, both aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil and music therapy, and aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil, along with a control group as well. The anxiety of nurses was measured based on the Beck Anxiety Inventory before the intervention and after three work shifts. The data were analyzed using the SPSS v.22 software. One-way ANOVA was used to test the hypotheses. The findings showed that the mean scores of the anxiety of nurses after the intervention in the three groups namely the group for which music therapy was applied, the group for which aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil was used and the group for which both music therapy and aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil were applied, were (39.28), (37.82) and (40.03), respectively. Therefore, the obtained mean score of each group was significantly lower than that of the control group (56.08) (p < 0.0001). The results showed that the interventions of music therapy and aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil could reduce the anxiety of nurses. Therefore, it is recommended to use music therapy and aromatherapy with chamomile-lavender essential oil to reduce the anxiety of nurses in the clinical setting.