In all, 124 participants agreed to participate in this study
and were allocated to either group. Of those, 121 (97.6%)
provided valid responses. In Fig. 1, the process of study
participation is presented; the participants’ characteristics
appear in Table 1. The participants were assigned alternatively
to the aromatherapy and control rooms because
the duration of infusion therapy was the same for all the
patients, and in this way the rooms became available at
regular intervals.
The mothers’ mean age was 32.83 years, and the children’s
mean age was 35.75 months. The mothers reported
having moderate child-rearing anxiety. Most of the mothers
received help in child rearing from other people, and
such individuals accompanied the mothers to the hospital
in about one-quarter of the cases. The mean state
anxiety score of the mothers on arrival at hospital was
51.26 [standard deviation (SD) = 8.58]. The aromatherapy
group received the intervention for approximately 2 h in
the infusion room. Two participants in the aromatherapy
group turned off the diffuser before the 2 h expired; however,
they were included in the intervention group for the
intent-to-treat analysis. The internal consistency reliability
(Cronbach