Authors (including presenting author) :
Tse CH (1)
Affiliation :
Orthopaedic and Traumatic Department, Tseung Kwan O Hospital
Introduction :
Soft music has been shown to alter human neural activity and promote the production of endogenous dopamine and opioids (Lunde et al., 2019). A recent study indicates that the impact of music on reducing pain and anxiety is enhanced when tunes are set to 432Hz (Calamassi & Pomponi, 2019).The advantages of music therapy include being convenient, easy, inexpensive, non-invasive and minimal side effects. Studies have demonstrated that the pain reducing effect of music is similar to sedative medication and potentially reduce recovery time (Vijay & Hauser, 2023). Patients usually experience pain and anxiety during post-operative dressing changes, which leads to reduced mobility, reduced quality of life, increased risk of cardiac and pulmonary complications (Meissner et al., 2018). Currently, administering analgesics is the most common pain relieving strategy, but the associated side effects and potential allergic reactions are noteworthy drawbacks. Thus, implementing 432Hz music therapy offers a promising avenue for continuous quality improvement in pain management.
Objectives :
1. The pain level associated with changing post-operative dressings would be reduced by 1 point reduction in the numerical rating scale (NRS) after applying music therapy.
2. Patients will be less anxious during dressing changes after receiving music therapy.
Methodology :
Our target participants were those patients who needed to change their surgical dressing and a piece of 432Hz music was played through iPad during the dressing. It was a one-group pretest-posttest design. The participants would be asked to complete a questionnaire comparing the pain NRS and anxiety level before and after music therapy. The duration of the trial was 6 weeks. The data was collected by electronic form and the primary outcome was analyzed by using the paired t test with the SPSS software.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 28 completed questionnaires were collected and the mean pain NRS score significantly decreased from 5.57 (pre) to 4.21 (post). A statistically significant difference (p < 0.001) and a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.740), indicating substantial pain reduction. A high correlation (r = 0.939) suggests consistency in paired measurements. However, being a one-group pretest-posttest design, the study is subject to selection and response biases. Besides, participant backgrounds, types of surgeries, medications effects and the duration of music therapy may have acted as confounding factors. Future research should involve a larger sample size and a well-designed study to further validate these findings.
