Patients who are awaiting medical procedures often experience anxiety. Music and music therapy are often used for anxiety and studies on the use of music can be found within the music therapy, nursing, and medical literature. 

Bradt, Dileo & Shim (2013) completed a Cochrane Review on the use of music interventions for preoperative anxiety. The authors reviewed studies using music medicine and music therapy interventions, with music medicine described as listening to passive music that is offered by medical personnel.

The authors identified 26 trials inclusive of 2051 total participants that involved listening to pre-recorded music. Results of this systematic review indicated that listening to music significantly decreases anxiety in preoperative patients.  There was also a small effect on physiological measures including respiratory rate.

The authors concluded that music interventions may provide an alternative to sedatives and pharmaceuticals for reducing anxiety.

Interestingly, all of the studies that met the inclusion criteria were classified as music medicine studies. The authors also report that few of the included studies detailed the music utilized beyond general categories. Furthermore, many of the studies had high risk of bias (n = 24).

This information is very interesting and supports the use of music listening for reduction of anxiety; however, it is unfortunate that there were no music therapy intervention studies that met the criteria of this review.

In pasts posts I’ve mentioned how systematic reviews and meta-analyses can be helpful when trying to understand the scope of available research in an area. The researchers also pool together data to help determine the impact of the intervention(s).

However, the focus on randomized control trials (with specific features) means that smaller studies will not be included. Furthermore, inclusion criteria may allow for poorly conducted randomized controlled trials to be counted despite methodological flaws; whereas, the single system design study with great methodology wouldn’t be make the first cut. For this reason and others, there is a body of research focused on the implementation of the meta-analysis! This is also a reason why the clinician should remain appraised of research outside of the systematic review/meta-analysis.

Reference:

Bradt, J., Dileo, C., & Shim, M. (2013). Music interventions for preoperative anxiety.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 6;6, CD006908. PMID: 23740695