Effects of Music Therapy on Anesthesia Requirements and Anxiety in Women Undergoing Ambulatory Breast Surgery for Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Purpose To investigate the effect of live and recorded perioperative music therapy on anesthesia requirements, anxiety levels, recovery time, and patient satisfaction in women experiencing surgery for diagnosis or treatment of breast cancer. Patients and Methods Between 2012 and 2014, 207 female patients undergoing surgery for potential or known breast cancer were randomly assigned to receive either patient-selected live music (LM) preoperatively with therapist-selected recorded music intraoperatively (n = 69), patient-selected recorded music (RM) preoperatively with therapist-selected recorded music intraoperatively (n = 70), or usual care (UC) preoperatively with noise-blocking earmuffs intraoperatively (n = 68). Results The LM and the RM groups did not differ significantly from the UC group in the amount of propofol required to reach moderate sedation. Compared with the UC group, both the LM and the RM groups had greater reductions (P < .001) in anxiety scores preoperatively (mean changes [and standard deviation: −30.9 [36.3], −26.8 [29.3], and 0.0 [22.7]), respectively. The LM and RM groups did not differ from the UC group with respect to recovery time; however, the LM group had a shorter recovery time compared with the RM group (a difference of 12.4 minutes; 95% CI, 2.2 to 22.5; P = .018). Satisfaction scores for the LM and RM groups did not differ from those of the UC group. Conclusion Including music therapy as a complementary modality with cancer surgery may help manage preoperative anxiety in a way that is safe, effective, time-efficient, and enjoyable.

Music Therapy in the Psychosocial Treatment of Adult Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…Although ratings overall show high bias in all studies, the extent of different biases varies among studies. Only four studies out of 30 had low risk of bias in four categories (Palmer et al, 2015;Warth et al, 2015a;Letwin and Silverman, 2017;Bieligmeyer et al, 2018) and five in three categories (Cassileth et al, 2003;Hanser et al, 2006;Horne-Thompson and Grocke, 2008;Bradt et al, 2015;Dóro et al, 2017). With regard to the specific categories, the risk in randomization and allocation sequence was low or unclear in all studies, except one that was a controlled clinical trial (Domingo et al, 2015).…”

“…Four studies showed a high risk of inappropriate handling of missing data. No study was rated high on selective outcome reporting and four studies provided a study protocol (Palmer et al, 2015;Warth et al, 2015a;Tuinmann et al, 2017;Bieligmeyer et al, 2018). Only one study provided information on treatment implementation (Allen, 2010).…”

“…In one of them, lung cancer patients listened to relaxing music played by a therapist before and after surgery (Wang et al, 2015) and showed less anxiety, lower blood pressure, and heart rate parameters as well as a lower need for analgesics. Patients in Palmer and colleagues' study (Palmer et al, 2015) listened to a song before surgery and verbally reflected on it. During the operation, they listened to music chosen by the therapist.…”

Effectiveness of a musical training programme in promoting happiness and quality of life of underprivileged preschool children

“…There has been an increased use of musical training to improve the mental health of children and adolescents (Gold, Voracek, & Wigram, 2004), to improve psychosocial skills of children with autism (Ghasemtabar et al, 2015), to reduce anxiety and agitation in older people with dementia (Sung, Lee, Li, & Watson, 2012) and to reduce anxiety in cancer patients undergoing breast surgery (Palmer, Lane, Mayo, Schluchter, & Leeming, 2015). In addition, many studies have indicated that playing music has beneficial involvement of community nurses may greatly enhance the sustainability of the programme, thus making it to be a routine health promotion activity.…”

Roadmap to Wellness: Exploring Live Customized Music at the Bedside for Hospitalized Children

“…While anxiety scores and time to discharge readiness improved, both selection and interviewer bias were introduced. Anesthetic requirements were equivalent in this study ( 10 ). Similarly, a large ( n = 400) cohort of patients undergoing two sessions of shockwave lithotripsy and receiving recorded, self-selected music at different time intervals showed improved anxiety and pain scores, but equivalent vital signs measurements.…”