Abstract

An initiative to study the use of peppermint oil inhalers to decrease post-op nausea began with a poster critiquing Anderson and Gross's research article “Aromatherapy with Peppermint, Isopropyl Alcohol, or Placebo Is Equally Effective in Relieving Postoperative Nausea.”3 The poster was entered into a contest during Nurses Week, and then posted on the cardiovascular critical care complex (CVCCC), which is our open-heart surgery ICU and the open-heart surgery step-down unit, to provide an example of how to critique a research article. It also informed nurses about the use of peppermint oil for post-op nausea. This drew the interest of nurses in the step-down section of CVCCC, and they began asking if this approach would be appropriate for their patients undergoing open-heart surgery.