Essential Oil Aromatherapy Intervention

The process of drawing blood for can be painful and stressful for any patient. Those patients who participate in a clinical trial agree to frequent lab sampling to monitor for effect and safety of the investigational product. The frequency is variable, from several times a day for a participant in the hospital to annually for some trials. Participants have reported anxiety regarding the number of tubes to be drawn, even resulting in near syncope, and pain with the venipuncture process. The clinical trial nurses at HealthEast have utilized a variety of therapeutic techniques to ease the pain and anxiety experienced by the trial subjects, such as redirection, deep breathing, hand massage and guided imagery. These techniques have not been evaluated for effectiveness in easing pain and anxiety nor have they been compared with no intervention to determine if any intervention was more efficacious in alleviating pain and/or anxiety. The primary objective of this study is determine if aromatherapy with an essential oil has a higher reported effect in anxiety and pain relief with venipunctures than standard of care (no therapy) among participants in HealthEast Clinical Trials Office studies. Secondary objectives include comparing the number of venipunctures and blood collection tubes in the treatment arms. This is a randomized, open label, prospective single site study designed to determine the effect of essential oil aromatherapy compared to usual care on pain and anxiety associated with venipunctures for clinical trial participants in the HealthEast Heart Care Clinic.