Decreasing blood pressure with lavender aromatherapy in elderly with hypertension.

Hypertension requires appropriate management to overcome the increased blood pressure through complementary therapy. Complementary therapy with lavender essential oil is an option for hypertension, but many people don't use it. This study aimed to analyze the effect of lavender aromatherapy on blood pressure changes in the elderly with hypertension. The research design used was a pre-experimental design with a one-group pre-posttest design. The population was all elderly with hypertension. The sample consisted of 36 elderly with hypertension determined by a simple random sampling technique. The independent variable was lavender aromatherapy, and the dependent variable was blood pressure changes. The instruments of this research were an observation sheet, a sphygmomanometer, a stethoscope, a diffuser, and lavender essential oil. The research data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. The results showed that more elderlies (52.8%) were in the moderate hypertension category before receiving lavender aromatherapy. After being given the aromatherapy, 63.9% of the elderly were in the mild hypertension category. The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test obtained a value of 0.000. Therefore, lavender aromatherapy influenced blood pressure changes. Lavender aromatherapy decreased blood pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]