Aim: One of the main health problems during aging period is chronic pain. Aromatherapy is one of the ways to reduce the pains of this period. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of inhaling rose extract on chronic musculoskeletal pain in the elderly people.
Material and Method: This is a single-blind clinical trial. Sampling was carried out in a convenient way with random allocation on 60 elderly patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain in Retirement Centres of Sabzevar in 2016. The elderly people were randomly assigned to two groups of intervention (31 persons) and control (29 people) using permutation blocks method. Pain was measured by combined numerical and visual pain assessment instrument and McGill pain questionnaire, which its validity and reliability were confirmed in other studies, before and after the intervention by interviewing and twice a week on Monday (combined pain assessment tool) and Thursday (McGill pain questionnaire) by phone in two groups during the intervention. In the intervention group, the inhalation of the rose extract was performed by linen handkerchief impregnated with three drops of extract from 9 pm to 6 am at 25 cm intervals, one time a day for three weeks. In the control group, sweet almond oil was used with the same method. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 20 and with a significant level of p <0.05.
Results: The results showed that pain intensity score at baseline was high in two groups and there was no significant difference between the two groups. However, after intervention and with the passage of time to the end of three weeks, a decrease in both groups was observed and this decrease was more in the intervention group.
