Efficacy of aromatherapy with Rosa damascena in the improvement of sleep quality of cancer patients: A randomized controlled clinical trial

摘要

1. Introduction: Sleep disorders are among the most common medical complaints in cancer patients. One of the outcomes of sleep disorders is their adverse effect on the quality of life and individual's social function. The results of previous studies show that sleep disorders in cancer patients are not regularly monitored or treated by health care providers and this can lead to an exacerbation of many of the patient's problems, such as fatigue, anxiety, depression, and eventually progression of cancer [1]. Based on statistics, 25-50% of all the prescriptions for cancer patients are hypnotic agents, the most prevalent of which are benzodiazepines. Drowsiness, dizziness, irritability, and amnesia are some side effects of these drugs, which are experienced by many patients, preventing them from taking the medication [2]. Nowadays, there is an increasing interest towards complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) [3,4], especially toward medicinal herbs [5,6]. This issue is related to the use of simple, safe, and effective therapeutic methods used to improve and optimize the quality of life, especially in cancer patients [7,8]. CAM methods help the patients to manage their problems with remedies with lower side effects and even lower socio-economic costs [9,10]. Moreover, various recent studies suggest that CAM methods such as acupuncture, aromatherapy, herbal medicine and yoga could improve the cancer patients' quality of life [11-14]. Aromatherapy is one of the CAM methods with a history of several thousand years [14,15], Aromatherapy is used to treat various diseases through extracted essence of different parts of plants such as flowers, leaves and stems. Essences are volatile oils that have broad different dosage forms including inhalation, oral and topical ones [16]. The results of many studies suggest that aromatherapy is effective in improving the sleep quality [17-19].