Effectiveness of lemon peel extract on knee pain among patients with rheumatoid arthritis

A true experimental study to evaluate the effectiveness of lemon peel extract on knee pain among patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis in a village at Kanyakumari district. Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of lemon peel extract on knee pain among patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Materials and Methods: A true experimental pre-test post-test control group design was adopted for the study. Sample size was 60, calculated using Slovin’s formula and with the help of simple random sampling method 30 participants were allotted in study group and 30 participants in control group.Pre- intervention and post-intervention knee pain was assessed using Western Ontario And McMaster University Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) Scale. Lemon peel extract was applied for 20 minutes once a day for 15 days for the study group and control group had not received any intervention. Mean, standard deviation and paired and unpaired ‘t’ test was used to evaluate the effectiveness of lemon peel extract on knee pain. The comparison of post- intervention knee pain score between study group and control group was analysed by unpaired ‘t’ test. The comparison of pre-intervention and post-intervention pain score within the group was analysed using paired ‘t’ test. Chi-square test was used to find out the association between demographic variables and clinical variables of the participants with their pre-intervention knee pain score. Results: The study results showed that, in study group, the mean post-intervention score on knee pain (29.63) was lower than the mean pre-intervention score on knee pain (79.5), which showed that, there was a significant difference between the mean pre-intervention and post-intervention score on knee pain, in study group, whereas the mean post- intervention score on knee pain in study group (29.63) with the standard deviation of (9.73)was lower than the mean post- intervention score on knee painin control group (75.9) with the standard deviation of (10.998). Unpaired ‘t’ test value for knee pain was 18.259 which was significant at p≤0.05 and was highly significant at p≤0.01, p≤0.001. In study group the paired ‘t’ test value for knee pain was 11.411 which was significant at p≤0.05 and was highly significant at p≤0.01, p≤0.001, and in control group the paired ‘t’ test value for knee pain was 3.636 which was significant at p≤0.05 and was highly significant at p≤0.01, p≤0.001. This represents the effectiveness of lemon peel extract on knee pain. Conclusion: According to the results, application of lemon peel extract had considerably reduced the knee pain, which revealed that the lemon peel extract was one of the most important and effective intervention in reducing knee pain.