Parunkul Tungsukruthai
Thammasat University, Thailand
Title: Efficacy and Safety of Herbal Hot Steam Bath in Allergic Rhinitis
Biography
Biography: Parunkul Tungsukruthai
Abstract
Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a nasal mucosa inflammatory disorder that induced by an allergen exposure resulting in four symptoms including rhinorrhoea, sneezing, nasal itching and nasal congestion. Allergic rhinitis may results in sleep disturbance, fatigue, and quality of life impairment. The objective to examine the efficacy and safety in reducing allergic rhinitis of herbal steam bath compared to the steam bath, and to investigate the quality of life improvement and satisfaction in allergic rhinitis patients. A single-blind randomized controlled trial was conducted on sixty four subjects who equally allocated into two groups. The treatment group was received herbal steam bath, and the control group was received steam bath without herbs for 30 minutes 3 times a week for 4 consecutive weeks. Allergic rhinitis symptoms were measured using the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) including itchy nose, runny nose, sneezing, nasal congestion and watery eyes at week 0,1,2,3 and week 4. Quality of life was assessed at week 0 and week 4 fond that the characteristics (sex, age, status, education, allergic rhinitis symptoms and frequency of symptoms) at the baseline were shown to be non-statistically significant. In addition, rhinorrhoea, sneezing, nasal itching and nasal congestion symptoms statistically reduced (p value<0.05), but non-significance when compared between treatment and control group. The treatment group was also shown to be significantly satisfied when compared to control group (p<0.05). Both herbal steam bath and normal steam bath had effectiveness in reducing symptoms of allergic rhinitis, and were safe to be used as an alternative treatment for allergic rhinitis.