Essential oils reduce autonomous response to pain sensation during self-monitoring of blood glucose among children with diabetes

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Essential oils were proven to possess analgesic activity in adults. Children with diabetes are exposed to highly painful interventions such as self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG). OBJECTIVE: An evaluation of the analgesic properties of two essential oils during SMBG in diabetic children. SUBJECTS: We included 73 hospitalized children (age<18 years) with well-controlled type 1 diabetes. METHODS: The study extended over a period of 1 month (2 weeks for control group and 1 week for orange and lavender oil application). The measurements were performed four times per day in a shared room during SMBG. Pain intensity was evaluated by visual analog scale (VAS) and change of baseline heart rate (ΔHR%). An aromatherapy device was used to disperse essential oils in the testing room. RESULTS: We performed 647 individual measurements of pain intensity and ΔHR%. Girls reported higher VAS scores [median, Me 0.5 (interquartile range, IQR 0-1) vs. 0 (IQR 0-0.5), p=0.0036]. Both age and duration of diabetes correlated with ΔHR% [r=-0.14, p=0.0005; r=-0.12, p=0.0025]. Negative correlations were also noted for VAS/age [r=-0.12, p=0.0030] and VAS/duration of diabetes [r=-0.12, p=0.0034]. Aromatherapy did not alter the VAS score (p=0.40), while ΔHR% decreased with borderline significance (p=0.0639). After adjustment for patient's age and sex lower ΔHR% was associated with essential oil application (p=0.0252). Aromatherapy did not have any influence on VAS scores in multivariate analysis (p=0.35). CONCLUSION: Aromatherapy decreased the autonomic response to a painful stimulus by lowering ΔHR%, but did not affect the perception of pain reported by VAS.