A music therapy program can be beneficial for patients undergoing surgery, according to a paper published in the AORN Journal.
The two-year randomized study examined music's effect on the anxiety of 207 women undergoing a biopsy for breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. Researchers randomized patients into a control group, a group that listened to live music and a group that listened to recorded music. Researchers asked patients to self-rate their anxiety using a visual scale, ranging from "not at all anxious" to "highly anxious."
Here are three study insights:
1. Patients in both live and recorded music groups experienced a significant decrease in preoperative anxiety, when compared to the control group.
2. Patients in the live music group saw a 42.5 percent reduction in anxiety, and those in the recorded music group saw a decrease of 41.2 percent in anxiety.
3. Thus, a music therapist may be highly beneficial in the surgical setting.
"As an interdisciplinary surgical staff member, the music therapist may help nurses achieve patient-related goals of anxiety reduction, pain management, effective education and satisfaction," said Jaclyn Bradley Palmer, a board-certified music therapist at UH Seidman Cancer Center in Cleveland and the study's lead author. "And by having professional music therapists facilitate surgical music therapy programs, nursing workloads also may be reduced."