Aromatherapy for Managing Pain in Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review of Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trials

J. Clin. Med. 2018, 7(11), 434; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm7110434 Aromatherapy for Managing Pain in Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review of Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trials Myeong Soo Lee 1,†,* OrcID, Hye Won Lee 2,†OrcID, Mohamed Khalil 3, Hyun Suk Lim 4 and Hyun-Ja Lim 5 1 Clinical Medicine Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 34054, Korea 2 Herbal Medicine Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 34054, Korea 3 Public Health & Research Development, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Ministry of Health, Riyadh 11662, Saudi Arabia 4 Department of Nursing, Howon University, Gusan 54058, Korea 5 Department of Nursing, Chodang University, Muan-gun 58530, Korea † These authors contributed equally to this work. * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Received: 22 September 2018 / Revised: 1 November 2018 / Accepted: 9 November 2018 / Published: 10 November 2018 (This article belongs to the Section Anesthesiology) Full-Text | PDF [1426 KB, uploaded 13 November 2018] | Figures Abstract Aromatherapy, the therapeutic use of essential oils, is often used to reduce pain in primary dysmenorrhea. Eleven databases, including four English (PubMed, AMED, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library) and seven Korean medical databases, were searched from inception through August 2018 without restrictions on publication language. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) testing aromatherapy for pain reduction in primary dysmenorrhea were considered. Data extraction and risk-of-bias assessments were performed by two independent reviewers. All of the trials reported superior effects of aromatherapy for pain reduction compared to placebo (n = 1787, standard mean difference (SMD): −0.91, 95% CI: −1.17 to −0.64, p < 0.00001) with high heterogeneity (I2 = 88%). A sub-analysis for inhalational aromatherapy for the alleviation of pain also showed superior effects compared to placebo (n = 704, SMD: −1.02, 95% CI: −1.59 to −0.44, p = 0.0001, I2 = 95%). With regard to aromatherapy massage, the pooled results of 11 studies showed favorable effects of aromatherapy massage on pain reduction compared to placebo aromatherapy massage (n = 793, SMD: −0.87, 95% CI: −1.14 to −0.60, p < 0.00001, I2 = 70%). Oral aromatherapy had superior effects compared to placebo (n = 290, SMD: −0.61, 95% CI: −0.91 to −0.30, p < 0.0001, I2 = 0%). In conclusion, our systemic review provides a moderate level of evidence on the superiority of aromatherapy (inhalational, massage, or oral use) for pain reduction over placebo in primary dysmenorrhea. View Full-Text Keywords: aromatherapy; essential oil; inhalation; pain; dysmenorrhea; systematic review; meta-analysis ▼ Figures Figure 1 This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0). SciFeed Share & Cite This Article MDPI and ACS Style Lee, M.S.; Lee, H.W.; Khalil, M.; Lim, H.S.; Lim, H.-J. Aromatherapy for Managing Pain in Primary Dysmenorrhea: A Systematic Review of Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trials. J. Clin. Med. 2018, 7, 434. Show more citation formats Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.