Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2019 Dec 2;9(1):18042.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-54529-9.

Efficacy and safety of lavender essential oil (Silexan) capsules among patients suffering from anxiety disorders: A network meta-analysis

Wuan Shuen Yap  1 , Anton V Dolzhenko  1   2 , Zahraa Jalal  3 , Muhammad Abdul Hadi  4 , Tahir Mehmood Khan  5   6
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Efficacy and safety of lavender essential oil (Silexan) capsules among patients suffering from anxiety disorders: A network meta-analysis

Wuan Shuen Yap et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

A systematic review and network-meta analysis (NMA) were performed to estimate significance of the anxiolytic effect of lavender essential oil taken as silexan capsules versus other comparators (i.e., placebo/paroxetine/lorazepam). The outcome of interest was Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA). Weighted mean differences (WMD) were calculated to estimate the treatment effect at the confidence interval of 95%. League tables were generated using treatment effect, for all pairwise comparisons, where WMD < 0 favors the column-defining treatment. Five studies were identified with a total of 524 participants receiving treatment with silexan 80 mg and 121 participants taking silexan 160 mg. The NMA results indicated that consumption of silexan 160 mg resulted in higher decline of HAMA score [WMD -1.14 (-1.10, 3.39)] in comparison to silexan 80 mg, placebo [-2.20 (-4.64, 0.24)] and paroxetine [-1.24 (-5.34, 2.85)]. The effect of silexan 80 mg was observed to be same as that of paroxetine. Overall, silexan 160 mg was noticed to be a more efficient treatment giving significant decline in HAMA score across other comparators. However, no improvements in HAMA score was observed for the group receiving lorazepam 0.5 mg when compared to silexan 160 mg, silexan 80 mg, paroxetine 20 mg, and placebo.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow diagram.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Summary of risk of bias.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Risk of bias among studies.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Network Plot.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Pairwise comparison of all treatments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bandelow B, Michaelis S. Epidemiology of anxiety disorders in the 21st century. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience. 2015;17:327. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baxter A, Scott K, Vos T, Whiteford H. Global prevalence of anxiety disorders: a systematic review and meta-regression. Psychological medicine. 2013;43:897–910. doi: 10.1017/S003329171200147X. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kessler RC, Wang PS. The descriptive epidemiology of commonly occurring mental disorders in the United States. Annu. Rev. Public Health. 2008;29:115–129. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.29.020907.090847. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alonso, J. & Lépine, J.-P. Overview of key data from the European Study of the Epidemiology of Mental Disorders (ESEMeD). The Journal of clinical psychiatry (2007). - PubMed
    1. McEvoy PM, Grove R, Slade T. Epidemiology of anxiety disorders in the Australian general population: findings of the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry. 2011;45:957–967. doi: 10.3109/00048674.2011.624083. - DOI - PubMed

MeSH terms