Bach flower therapy to reduce anxiety in nurses: quasi-experimental study

INRODUCTION: Anxiety is the second biggest cause of disability compared to other mental disorders. Flower therapy is an integrative, complementary and non-drug practice that uses essences from wild plants. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of using Bach flower therapy to reduce anxiety in nurses. METHOD: This was a quasi-experimental, descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. The study was carried out with 22 nurses from a hospital in Recife - PE. Anxiety was assessed using the Beck Anxiety Inventory before and after using flower therapy for 30 days. The information was analyzed using SPSS software. For the inferential analysis, a repeated measures Student’s t-test was used. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: After the use of flower therapy for 30 days by the 22 participants in the intervention, 21 were found to have reduced their level of severe anxiety to minimal or mild anxiety. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: Bach flower therapy has been shown to be effective in reducing anxiety in nurses. Therefore, this complementary treatment approach has promising potential as an alternative for managing anxiety.