Essential Oil Education for Health Care Providers

Patients' use of complementary and integrative health practices has been increasing in the United States for a variety of reasons. The use of essential oils is one complementary and integrative health modality that continues to increase in popularity. Many providers are not knowledgeable about and are not comfortable discussing the topic with their patients.

The research team intended to evaluate the effectiveness of the dissemination of current information on essential oils to health care practitioners through a continuing education module.

The research team developed and implemented the module in collaboration with the American Association of Nurse Practitioners Continuing Education (AANP CE) Center.

The continuing education module was made available on the AANP CE Center's Web site to allow the voluntary participation of nurse practitioners throughout the nation at their convenience. The module was available to other interested practitioners as well.

Participants were 231 health care practitioners, 62.5% of whom were nurse practitioners in family practice.

The education module included information on 5 commonly used essential oils, indications for use in patient populations, and safety and contraindications for use.

Pretest and posttest measures of participants' knowledge of essential oils and an evaluation by participants of the educational module were used to evaluate its effectiveness. Data were collected from the Web site during a 3-mo period, for the months of June, July, and August 2015.

An increase in the correct responses at posttest, when compared with the pretest, demonstrated that learning had occurred because of the module. Upon completion of the module, most participants reported that they felt more comfortable discussing integrative health modalities and essential oils with their patients. Most participants also reported that they intended to ask their patients about their use of integrative health practices because of their experiences with the continuing education module.

The overall results demonstrated a positive effect on participants, showing their increased knowledge of essential oil indications, safety, and contraindications, as evidenced by the posttest and evaluation results.