The Effect of Coffee Aromatherapy on Reducing Fatigue and Stress Levels of Female Caregivers Caring for the Elderly in Hospitals

Abstract

Background. The exploration of coffee as an aromatherapy in the health service has not been widely carried out. In many cases, aromatherapy has been shown to reduce stress and fatigue. Purpose.   To analyzes the effect of coffee aromatherapy on the fatigue and stress levels of female caregivers caring for the elderly at the University of Sumatera Utara Hospital (USU Hospital), in Medan. Methods. This is a quasi-experiment one group pretest posttest design.  The research involved 16 caregivers were given a treatment of coffee oil by inhalation for 15 minutes for three consecutive days, without coffee oil inhalation and 10% of coffee oil concentration on the first day, 20% on the second day, and 30% on the third day. Each sample received a pretest and posttest in the form of stress and fatigue instruments.  The data analysis performed was univariate in order to describe the properties of each variable examined and analyze the mean score. Similarly, bivariate analysis with the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistical test was used to determine the effect of coffee aromatherapy on reducing the fatigue and stress level. Results. The result showed that most caregivers were elderly children with an average age of 38 years, 81.3% assisted in caring for the elderly, and actively working outside the home. Based on the ANOVA test, the data showed that the administration of coffee aromatherapy for three consecutive days has no effect on female caregivers’ fatigue and stress level.  However, the mean score showed a decrease in fatique and stress level before and after coffee oil inhalation in three days.  Conclusion. It is necessary to provide coffee oil aromatherapy intervention with a longer duration to have an effect on reducing caregiver fatique and stress in the future, so the results are expected to form the basic data for the design of nursing interventions based on complementary therapies in order to reduce the fatigue and stress of caregivers while providing care to the hospitalized elderly.