Back pain and sleep quality after effleurage massage with lavender aromatherapy in third-trimester pregnant women

The global prevalence of back pain during pregnancy is 40.5%, making appropriate prevention and treatment a priority (Salari et al., 2023). Back pain in pregnant women has the potential to worsen their health and lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes, thereby increasing sleep disturbances. This study aimed to examine changes in back pain intensity and sleep quality before and after a two-day effleurage massage combined with lavender aromatherapy among third-trimester pregnant women. The study employed a quasi-experimental design with a pretest-posttest one-group design, involving 40 pregnant women in their third trimester who received the effleurage massage intervention for 2 days, 20 minutes per day, using massage oil made from a mixture of virgin coconut oil (VCO) and 2% lavender essential oil. This study used the PSQI questionnaire to measure sleep quality and the VAS scale to measure back pain. The results showed a decrease in the average back pain score from 6.3 to 3.35 after the intervention. Additionally, the participants’ sleep quality improved, as evidenced by an increase in the percentage of pregnant women reporting good sleep quality from 5% to 62.5% following the intervention. Statistical analysis revealed a p-value of <0.001, indicating a significant effect of effleurage massage and lavender aromatherapy on reducing back pain and improving sleep quality. The findings of this study indicate that effleurage massage and lavender aromatherapy short-term improvement in reducing back pain and improving sleep quality in third-trimester pregnant women. Thus, this intervention can be used as a simple, safe, and easily implemented nonpharmacological complementary therapy in obstetric care to help alleviate discomfort in third-trimester pregnant women. However, limited evidence is available on the combined use of effleurage massage and lavender aromatherapy as a single integrated intervention to address both back pain and sleep quality in third-trimester pregnant women. The originality of this study lies in its practical combined intervention protocol, using effleurage massage with virgin coconut oil and 2% lavender essential oil, to simultaneously reduce back pain and improve sleep quality.