Lavender Aromatherapy for Sleep in Hospitalized Adult Patients

Hospitalized patients on a medical unit will be randomly assigned to one of three groups of 36 patients: Intervention (Lavender oil), Placebo Intervention (Grapeseed Oil), or Control (Standard of Care). Following a determination of meeting inclusion criteria on admission and completing informed consent, subjects will be randomized to one of three groups on admission. This is a 4 day study with pre- intervention (baseline) sleep data on quality and duration of sleep using the Verrans \& Halpern- Snyder Sleep Scale collected on Day 2, following admission day. For the intervention, indirect aromatherapy, a 2x2 gauze with 2 drops of either oil (lavender or grapeseed is pinned it to the subjects' nightgown (right scapula area) for two sequential nights (Time 1 and Time 2) (Day 2 and 3) and removed in the morning after 10 hours . Sleep Quality and Duration are then measured in the morning, Time 1 and Time 2, (Day 3 and Day 4) by the Verran \& Snyder-Halpern Sleep Scale analogue. The control group receives standard of care in the evenings and the same data as the intervention groups are collected for sleep quality and duration, pre-intervention and Time 1 and Time 2 .. The differences in the scores for sleep quality and duration will be compared from pre-intervention to Time 1 and Time 2 for each group .