Does aromatherapy with lavender affect physical and psychological symptoms of menopausal women? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives: The objective of this review was to evaluate systematically the effectiveness of Lavender aromatherapy on physical and psychological symptoms in menopausal women. Methods: A comprehensive systematic literature search in the electronic databases including the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE (PubMed), Ovid, Embase, Scopus, ProQuest, Web of science, and Google scholar, as well as Magiran, SID, and Irandoc for Persian literature review up to January 2020. All Randomized controlled trials, and quasi-experimental studies that evaluated the impact of aromatherapy with lavender alone or in combination with other aromas on physical and psychological symptoms in menopausal women were included in this systematic review. Results: Sixteen interventional studies consisted of 1092 postmenopausal women included in systematic review. Eight of eligible studies with 493 participants included in meta-analysis. There were significant between group differences in menopausal symptoms (standardized mean difference (SMD) =-1.39, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.98 to 0.80, I-2 = 76%; four trials, 236 participants); sleep quality score (SMD = 2.16, 95%CI: 3.77 to 0.54, I-2 = 95%; three studies, 199 participants); systolic blood pressure (MD = 5.34 mmHg, 95% CI: 7.40 to 3.29, I-2 = 10%; two study, 114 participants); diastolic blood (MD = 5.06 mmHg, 95% CI: 7.55 to 2.57, I-2 = 0%; two study, 114 participants). Aromatherapy had positive effect on sexual function, self-esteem, anxiety, hot flash, but it had negative impact on triglyceride and high density lipoprotein compared to placebo (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Aromatherapy with Lavender in postmenopausal women may cause an improvement in most of physical and psychological symptoms. Further high quality studies especially with focus on the adverse events are suggested globally.