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. 2023 Jan 6:13:1028934.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1028934. eCollection 2022.

Music therapy effect on anxiety reduction among patients with cancer: A meta-analysis

Lu Zang  1 , Chunliang Cheng  2 , Yongxin Zhou  3 , Xuemei Liu  1
Affiliations

Music therapy effect on anxiety reduction among patients with cancer: A meta-analysis

Lu Zang et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Introduction: The study aimed to investigate the effect of music therapy on anxiety alleviation among cancer patients.

Methods: A comprehensive literature research was performed in four electronic databases (PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science). Fifteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. The risk of bias for the RCTs was evaluated by the Cochrane Risk of Bias tool. Anxiety levels were extracted to synthesize the combined effect by using meta-analysis. All analyses were performed using R version 4.0.4.

Results: In total, 15 RCTs met the inclusion criteria involving 1320 cancer patients (662 patients in the experimental group and 658 patients in the controlled group). The majority of interventions were performed with recorded music lasting for 15-60 minutes. Compared with standard care, music intervention had a moderate superiority of anxiety alleviation (SMD: -0.54, 95% CI: [-0.92, -0.16]).

Discussion: Music intervention could reduce cancer-related anxiety moderately. Nevertheless, the result should be interpreted with caution as high heterogeneity in this pooled study. Well-designed trials with higher quality were still warranted in the future.

Keywords: cancer; mental health; meta-analysis; music; music therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The flow for literature screening.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Risk of bias assessment for 15 included studies.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Forest plots for music therapy on anxiety. (A) Effect of music therapy measured by post-treatment anxiety with high heterogeneity. (B) Effect of music on therapy measured by post-treatment anxiety after sensitivity analysis. (C) Effect of music on therapy measured by anxiety changes.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
Subgroup analysis of the effect of music therapy on gender distribution (A), music type (B), and clinical procedure (C).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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