The Effect of Lavender Oil for Relief Painful Producer in Children and Infants: A Systematic Review

Background To manage the pain, one of the alternative methods entails the essential oils usage. Aim of this study is to give comprehensive information about the effect of lavender for aliavative painful producer in infants and children. Materials and Methods A systematic search was conducted on English databases of Scopus, Medline, Cochrane Library, EMBASE and Web of Science up to the end of February 2019. Authors performed search without any time restrictions. Two authors independently performed search and assessed their quality. Results The five studies (n=414 participants) were included. In the first study, the change of NIPS score was significantly lower in lavender than control groups. The duration of crying was 75.47 (60.675), and 105.22 (75.739) seconds in the lavender and the control groups, respectively, which was significantly different. In second study, aromatherapy with lavender was unable to change the VAS score (p=0.40); while heart rate decreased to a significance borderline level (p=0.0639). In the third study, significant differences in the mean SpO2, respiratory rate, and heart rate at different time points between the aromatherapy with lavender and the control groups in preschool children. In the fourth study, the lavender group exhibited lower NIPS score compared to the amniotic fluid and breast milk groups. In fifth study, 80 term infants were assigned into case (n=40), and control (n=40) groups, there was a significant difference in pain scores between the two groups, lavender and control. Conclusion This study showed that the lavender as non-pharmacological effective way is effective to alleviate the blood sampling-related pain in infants and children, though it did not affect the duration of crying.