This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) Purchase Article View Shopping Cart Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a colleague Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Save to my personal folders Download to citation manager Rights & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Wilkinson, S. M. Articles by Ramirez, A. J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Wilkinson, S. M. Articles by Ramirez, A. J. Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

Effectiveness of Aromatherapy Massage in the Management of Anxiety and Depression in Patients With Cancer: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial

Susie M. Wilkinson, Sharon B. Love, Alex M. Westcombe, Maureen A. Gambles, Caroline C. Burgess, Anna Cargill, Teresa Young, E. Jane Maher, Amanda J. Ramirez

From the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit, Royal Free and University College Medical School, Department of Mental Health Sciences, Cancer Research UK London Psychosocial Group, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London; Lynda Jackson Macmillan Centre, Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, Middlesex; and Cancer Research UK Medical Statistics Group, Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Oxford, United Kingdom

Address reprint requests to Amanda Ramirez, MD, Cancer Research UK London Psychosocial Group, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London CR-UK London Psychosocial Group, St Thomas’ Hospital, London, United Kingdom SE1 7EU; e-mail: Amanda-jane.ramirez{at}kcl.ac.uk

Purpose To test the effectiveness of supplementing usual supportive care with aromatherapy massage in the management of anxiety and depression in cancer patients through a pragmatic two-arm randomized controlled trial in four United Kingdom cancer centers and a hospice.

Patients and Methods Two hundred eighty-eight cancer patients, referred to complementary therapy services with clinical anxiety and/or depression, were allocated randomly to a course of aromatherapy massage or usual supportive care alone.

Results Patients who received aromatherapy massage had no significant improvement in clinical anxiety and/or depression compared with those receiving usual care at 10 weeks postrandomization (odds ratio [OR], 1.3; 95% CI, 0.9 to 1.7; P = .1), but did at 6 weeks postrandomization (OR, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.1 to 1.9; P = .01). Patients receiving aromatherapy massage also described greater improvement in self-reported anxiety at both 6 and 10 weeks postrandomization (OR, 3.4; 95% CI, 0.2 to 6.7; P = .04 and OR, 3.4; 95% CI, 0.2 to 6.6; P = .04), respectively.

Conclusion Aromatherapy massage does not appear to confer benefit on cancer patients’ anxiety and/or depression in the long-term, but is associated with clinically important benefit up to 2 weeks after the intervention.

Supported by Cancer Research UK, Marie Curie Cancer Care, Macmillan Cancer Support, and Dimbleby Cancer Care.

Authors’ disclosures of potential conflicts of interest and author contributions are found at the end of this article.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Facebook    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				J. S. Ross, E. A. Slodkowska, W. F. Symmans, L. Pusztai, P. M. Ravdin, and G. N. Hortobagyi The HER-2 Receptor and Breast Cancer: Ten Years of Targeted Anti-HER-2 Therapy and Personalized Medicine Oncologist, April 1, 2009; 14(4): 320 - 368. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]