Includes bibliographical references and index.

Clinical trials are research studies designed to evaluate health care treatments for patient safety and effectiveness. This case study details a clinical trial of aromatherapy and light-touch hand massage in older adults who have chronic pain. In this case, you will learn to ask a scientific question that leads to quantitative analysis, the design features to minimize threats to generalizability of research findings, and identify the challenges inherent in research in health care environments. The study commenced in 2011 after a long writing and design learning experience. In a three-group randomized control design, 118 older adult participants with chronic pain living in long-term care facilities received eight sessions of aromatherapy hand massage, hand massage without aromatherapy, or eight nurse visits. Chronic pain was measured before and after the intervention using the Geriatric Multidimensional Pain and Illness Inventory, an instrument with three subscales, Pain and Suffering, Life Interference, and Emotional Distress and the Iowa Pain Thermometer, a pain intensity measure. The statistical analysis included multivariate analysis of variance and repeated measures analysis of variance for mixed design to answer the research questions. The statistical results indicate aromatherapy hand massage or hand massage without aromatherapy significantly decreases chronic pain intensity compared with no touch. The significant differences in pain scores between groups after the treatment provide evidence that hand massage is a safe, simple, but effective intervention that has potential to improve chronic pain outcomes in this population.

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