Terapia floral: significado da participação em pesquisa clínica para ansiosos com sobrepeso ou obesidade

• Ano de defesa: 2018
• Autor(a) principal: Pancieri, Ana Paula
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
• Palavras-chave em Português: Essências Florais; Ensaio Clínico; Pesquisa Qualitativa; Ansiedade; Obesidade; Flower Essences; Clinical Trial; Qualitative Research; Anxiety; Obesity
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/11449/153779

The World Health Organization acknowledges the importance of integrative and complementary health practices and recommends that studies are carried out to advance them, using, for example, randomized clinical trials, powerful tool to evaluate health interventions. Among these practices, floral therapy emerges in the field of vibrational therapies, with simple and natural non-invasive characteristics that heals and harmonizes without side-effects or incompatibility to other treatments. Thus, the objective of this study was to understand the experience of overweight or obese anxious individuals in participating of a clinical research trial that used floral therapy as health intervention. This is a qualitative study linked to the project entitled "Effectiveness of floral therapy on anxiety of overweight or obese adults". Forty-two overweight and obese individuals of both sexes were enrolled in this study between June and November of 2016 for a semi-structured interview after termination of the primary clinical trial conducted in an institute of public health. Data collected from interviews were qualitatively organized and analyzed according to Content Analysis from Bardin, separated in two categories that emerged from participants' speeches: “Meaning of participating in a clinical research trial” and “Perception of the action of the therapy used”. Publications from Edward Bach were used as theoretical basis for this study. Results showed that overweight or obese anxious individuals sought natural alternatives to control their anxiety and obesity, and they managed to achieve self-control during meals and in personal relationships, which was mainly strengthened by the benefits observed in their own or in people of their circle of relationships. The participants identified in floral therapy self-knowledge and tranquility, as they could better understand the small changes happening to their bodies, including sleep quality and compulsive feeding behavior. Reported equilibrium in emotions and anxiety indicates that participants were able to successfully face previous disappointments that caused sorrow, in which floral therapy revealed to be effective on. This study contributes to the perspective of participating in clinical research trials involving floral therapy and placebo, once deeper knowledge on floral therapy can facilitate it to be accepted as medical treatment by potential patients and health professionals. In addition, results of this study encourage supporting integrative and complementary health practices, directing patients and health professionals to novel alternatives to improve quality of life.