Examine the effects of aromatherapy on unidentified complaints and psychological stress responses among psychiatric day-care users with schizophrenia

Abstract

Not few cases have been reported that patients with schizophrenia living in their communities, including psychiatric day care users, redevelop their disease from stress such as changes in their homes and social environment.
In this study, we conducted aromatherapy to patients with schizophrenia in psychiatric day care service, to alleviate their stress, and we measured its effectiveness.
As a result, one category out of eight in unidentified complaints showed significant recovery in both intervention and control group. Psychological stress responses, neither before and after the intervention, didn’t show any significant difference between intervention group and control group. Comparing s-IgA in salivary stress marker, the level of s-IgA significantly increased only in intervention group.
This study result didn’t show what we expected that there wasn’t any physical and mental effective recovery from using aromatherapy. However, there was a significant increase of s-IgA in saliva in intervention group; therefore, it suggests that a certain amount of stress has been alleviated. We need to investigate its medium and long-term effectiveness in future