Recently application of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is increasing in children populations global over the past 15 years especially for pain and acute conditions. Tonsillectomy is one of the most common surgical procedures performed worldwide in childhood; one of its main complications is pain. The main reason for seeking lavender or honey is to avoiding chronic use of drugs with their related side effects. So the aim of the study was to determine the effect of using honey or lavender essential oil to reduce pain after tonsillectomy among preschool children. Quasi experimental research design was carried out. The research hypothesis was children who received honey or lavender essential oil use will have decreasing mean score of pain than the control group. The sample was contain of the convenient mothers (150) were divided into three groups equally, and referred to pediatric clinic in ENT department at Benha University Hospital. The following tools were used to collect the required data, tool I; structured interviewing questionnaire, which included mothers and their children's socio-demographic data, past history of children, and mothers' knowledge related to CAM, tool II; Visual Analog Scale for pain assessment in the three groups were evaluated through 3 days after surgery. The findings of the study demonstrated that there was a significant different between using honey or lavender essential oil use than control group to reduce post-tonsillectomy pain, with more improvement in Visual Analog Scale for pain assessment in honey group than lavender and control group. In relation to mothers’ knowledge about CAM, there was a significant and direct correlation between using CAM for children with increased maternal age. The study concluded that honey or lavender essential oil use is more effective than control group to reduce pain after tonsillectomy among preschool children, and above partial of the mothers of those children have poor knowledge about CAM. The study recommended that further researches regarding honey or lavender essential oil use to reduce pain after tonsillectomy, it is also highly recommended to apply educational program for enhancing mothers’ knowledge about the proper use of different kinds of CAM. |
