Investigating the effects of inhaling ginger essence on post-nephrectomy nausea and vomiting

There is a knowledge gap regarding the effects of ginger essence on postoperative nausea and vomiting. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of ginger essence on post-nephrectomy nausea and vomiting.

A randomized controlled trial was conducted.

This study was conducted from third April to first October 2014 in Labbafinejad hospital, Tehran, Iran. Totally, 120 nephrectomy patients were randomly allocated to either the treatment or the control groups. After nephrectomy, we applied two drops of ginger essence to a 2 × 2-inch gauze that was attached to the patients' collars in the treatment group to allow patients to inhale the evaporated essence along with the air room and then repeated every 30 min for two hours. The control group was similarly treated with normal saline. Nausea was assessed using a visual analogue scale every 30 min for two hours and at the sixth hour after surgery. The paired- and independent-samples t and repeated measures analysis of variance tests were used for data analysis.

The means nausea intensity were in the treatment and the control groups were 7.09 ± 1.59 and 7.40 ± 1.71 at thirty minutes after surgery (P value > 0.05). However, the mean nausea intensity in the treatment group at the four subsequent times were significantly lower than the control group (P value < 0.001). The numbers of vomiting episodes at two and six hours after the surgery were 0.88 ± 0.78 and 2.58 ± 1.35, in the treatment group and 4.80 ± 1.87 and 2.58 ± 1.35 in the control group. The differences between the two groups regarding the numbers of vomiting episodes were statistically significant (P value < 0.001).

Inhaling ginger essence has positive effect on postoperative nausea and vomiting. Using ginger essence for managing postoperative nausea and vomiting is recommended.