The Effect of Aromatherapy Massage on Sleep Quality of Patients with Cancer

Abstract

The inability to have a good quality sleep could increase the risk of cancer to become more agressive. This condition occured because the immune system was disturbed so that the ability of the immune system to take control or control cancer cells reduced. This research aimed to determine the effect of aromatherapy massage on the sleep quality of patients with cancer. Moreover, this research was a quantitative research with a quasi experiment design using pre and post test method without control group. The sample of this research consisted of 15 respondents and the sample taking employed a consecutive sampling technique. The sleep quality was measured by using a PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) questionnaire. Hence, the result of this research showed that there was a decrease of sleep quality score after the aromatherapy massage with the probability value of 0.0001 (p value <0.05). The decrease of the sleep quality score showed that there was an increase of sleep quality so that it could be concluded that there was an effect of the aromatherapy massage on the sleep quality of patients with cancer. Based on the result of this research, it was expected that aromatherapy massage to be recommended as an independent nursing intervention in healthcare services in order to enhance the sleep quality of patients with cancer.