Evaluating the feasibility of using the TREATS tool in determining the quality of randomised trials of clinical aromatherapy

IF 1.3 4区医学 Q3 INTEGRATIVE & COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE

European Journal of Integrative Medicine Pub Date : 2026-01-01 Epub Date: 2025-12-13 DOI:10.1016/j.eujim.2025.102600

Wendy Maddocks , Teresa Barron , Yasmine EIGhamrawy , Ying Liu

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Introduction

The TREATS™ protocol was developed in 2023 to improve the quality of reporting of clinical aromatherapy studies. Whilst there has been an increase in the number of studies in the last twenty years, these are often poorly conducted and reported on. The TREATS™ contains 38 points giving an overall rating of the research as either poor, fair or good. The protocol has not been widely tested outside of its development.

Methods

This project tested the feasibility of using of the tool on forty-three randomised controlled trials involving clinical aromatherapy published between 2024–2025. The tool was used to score each of the studies to provide a perspective of the quality of current clinical aromatherapy research.

Results

The project found that whilst the tool was easy to use once adapted for multiple studies, and provided a good starting point to evaluate quality, there are recommendations to enhance future iterations of the tool. The overall quality of published studies remains poor to fair according to the tool, with many areas for improvement required.

Conclusion

The TREATS™ is effective as an initial screening tool to evaluate the quality of clinical aromatherapy research, however the quality of extant research remains poor to fair.

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评估使用治疗工具确定临床芳香疗法随机试验质量的可行性

治疗™协议于2023年开发，旨在提高临床芳香疗法研究报告的质量。虽然在过去的二十年里，研究的数量有所增加，但这些研究的实施和报道往往很差。treat™包含38分，给出了研究的总体评级，分为差、公平或好。该协议尚未在其开发之外进行广泛测试。方法本项目在2024-2025年间发表的43项涉及临床芳香疗法的随机对照试验中测试了使用该工具的可行性。该工具用于对每个研究进行评分，以提供当前临床芳香疗法研究质量的视角。结果该项目发现，虽然该工具易于使用，一旦适用于多个研究，并提供了一个良好的起点来评估质量，有建议，以加强该工具的未来迭代。根据该工具，已发表研究的总体质量仍然很差，需要改进的领域很多。结论the TREATS™可作为评估临床芳香疗法研究质量的初始筛选工具，但现有研究的质量仍然较差。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

European Journal of Integrative Medicine INTEGRATIVE & COMPLEMENTARY MEDICINE-

CiteScore

4.70

自引率

4.00%

发文量

102

审稿时长

33 days

期刊介绍： The European Journal of Integrative Medicine (EuJIM) considers manuscripts from a wide range of complementary and integrative health care disciplines, with a particular focus on whole systems approaches, public health, self management and traditional medical systems. The journal strives to connect conventional medicine and evidence based complementary medicine. We encourage submissions reporting research with relevance for integrative clinical practice and interprofessional education. EuJIM aims to be of interest to both conventional and integrative audiences, including healthcare practitioners, researchers, health care organisations, educationalists, and all those who seek objective and critical information on integrative medicine. To achieve this aim EuJIM provides an innovative international and interdisciplinary platform linking researchers and clinicians. The journal focuses primarily on original research articles including systematic reviews, randomized controlled trials, other clinical studies, qualitative, observational and epidemiological studies. In addition we welcome short reviews, opinion articles and contributions relating to health services and policy, health economics and psychology.