Combining lavender capsules with oral hormonal contraceptives improves mood disorders in women.

To examine the efficacy of lavender essential oil capsules on mood disorders, such as stress, depression, and anxiety during combined oral contraceptives (COCs) use for pregnancy prevention and other disorders.

Sixty married women (aged 15 to 49 years) who were consumers of COCs were randomly assigned to receive either intervention (consuming one lavender 80 mg gelatin capsule every day for 56 days) therapy or control therapy (one placebo capsule every day).

The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) questionnaire was used to evaluate the positive and negative scores, while stress, depression, and anxiety levels were gauged using the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS21) questionnaire on the 28th and 56th days after the intervention. Data analysis involved t-tests and ANOVA with repeated measures, with p < 0.05 as significance.

The women receiving Lavender capsules or placebo had a statistically significant difference in different mood disorders. The effect of lavender capsules on mood and mental health is shown in the following table 1:

No statistically noteworthy difference between the two groups was observed in terms of anxiety.

Lavender essential oil capsules proved to be beneficial for improving mood disorders and reducing depression and stress in women taking contraceptives.