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

Abstract

Introduction: Music therapy is used as an adjunct oncological treatment aiming at the improvement of psychological and physical well-being through music. A growing body of randomized and non-randomized controlled trials has been published and reviewed recently. However, a global, quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of music therapy in adult cancer care is missing. The present study thus aims to synthesize the evidence of music therapy in different oncological treatment phases. Methods:We conducted a pre-registered systematic review and meta-analysis (PROSPERO-ID: CRD42019133084) following standard guidelines. We searched electronic databases for studies on music therapy performed by a therapist with adult cancer patients.Results: The narrative synthesis included thirty studies showing that music therapy overall had positive effects on a broad range of outcomes, with techniques and effects varying in different phases. During curative treatment, results were most promising with regard to anxiety, depression, and pain medication intake, while in palliative settings, improvements with regard to quality of life, spiritual well-being, pain, and stress were reported. Twenty-one studies were included in the meta-analysis which showed small but significant effects of music therapy on psychological well-being (d = 0.35, p < 0.001), physical symptom distress (d = −0.26, p = 0.017), and quality of life (d = 0.36, p = 0.023). Heterogeneity between effect sizes was small to medium. Moderator analyses identified studies with a single session of music therapy and the use of receptive techniques to produce larger effects regarding psychological well-being.Conclusion: Music therapy can improve relevant health-outcomes in cancer patients and should therefore be offered in various treatment phases. Future research should include potential moderators such as individual information about patients to find out who benefits most from different kinds of music therapy.

Music-based interventions for pain relief in patients undergoing hemodialysis

“…[ 29 ] It is well established that music therapy can offer multifaceted support in coping with anxiety related to the disease or the medical procedures, in promoting the stressful physical and emotional conditions, and in alleviating symptom management, including pain and dyspnea. [ 30 , 31 ] For women, painful sensations, as well as relevant anxiety reactions, tended to be more severe when compared to male patients receiving hemodialysis, which can be alleviated significantly by music therapy. [ 32 ] Consistent with these studies, we concluded that pain scores can remarkably drop after the intervention of music therapy during the hemodialysis, which may improve the quality of life.…”

Potential Psychological and Biological Mechanisms Underlying the Effectiveness of Neonatal Music Therapy during Kangaroo Mother Care for Preterm Infants and Their Parents

“…Identifying moderators or mediators in MT research is a rather new phenomena but has been mentioned as an important aspect for future research in medical settings [71]. In a recent meta-analysis of MT and psychosocial treatment in adult cancer patients, for example [72], the authors identified single sessions and receptive techniques as moderators for psychosocial wellbeing. In another meta-analysis, study type (i.e., quasi-experimental studies), origin of study (i.e., non-western countries), type of control condition (i.e., waiting list design), or study quality (i.e., low quality studies) were found to positively impact physiological and psychological stress-related outcomes via MT treatment [73].…”

Eficacia de los programas de musicoterapia: un metanálisis cualitativo

“…Otros 16 programas presentan una metodología de investigación cualitativa (32%). 6 de ellas son revisiones teóricas (37.5%) (Loewy, 2020;Philip et al, 2019;Sheppard & Broughton, 2020;Vinciguerra et al, 2019;Wei et al, 2020;Gramaglia et al, 2019) o metaanálisis en 4 programas (25%) (Koehler et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020;Lopes-Junior et al, 2016). La media de estudios analizados en cada revisión es 15.…”

“…Existen siete programas de musicoterapia (14%) que se implementan con enfermos de cáncer. Los beneficios de estos programas son la reducción de los síntomas de la ansiedad y la depresión (Gramaglia et al, 2019;Koehler et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2020;López et al, 2019), la mejora de la calidad de vida y el bienestar (Koehler et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2020;Valero-Cantero et al, 2020;Wei et al, 2020) y, la reducción del dolor y el estrés (Koehler et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2020;Lopes-Junior et al, 2016). La participación en programas de musicoterapia tanto para los enfermos de cáncer como para sus cuidadores disminuyen la ansiedad y la tensión (Valero-Cantero et al, 2020).…”