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. 2025 Mar 6;25(1):91.
doi: 10.1186/s12906-024-04739-0.

Evaluating the therapeutic use of music to address anxiety for women undergoing gynaecological and fertility treatments

Alison E Short  1   2 , Natasha Andreadis  3 , Geena Cheung  4 , Virginia Stulz  5   6
Affiliations

Evaluating the therapeutic use of music to address anxiety for women undergoing gynaecological and fertility treatments

Alison E Short et al. BMC Complement Med Ther. .

Abstract

Background: Music has been effectively used to address anxiety associated with medical treatments across broad applications. However, scant evidence exists about using music to reduce the significant anxiety experienced by women undergoing gynaecological procedures and fertility treatments. Such anxiety relates to the nature of procedures/examinations, invasiveness of the procedures, uncertainty around expectations, and intimate body part exposure, potentially affecting outcomes in triggering sympathetic nervous system responses. Music potentially contributes to anxiety management via known physiological and emotional effects. This funded collaborative project investigates therapeutic uses of music to address anxiety before and during gynaecology and fertility procedures, in order to assist participants with reducing their anxiety.

Methods: Participants attending office, day surgery and other hospital procedures (N = 41) completed validated self-report surveys before and after procedures, listening to specific music via a purpose-designed Music Star. Additional contextual and qualitative data was sought to understand the nature of the experience for the women.

Results: Results of this study indicated that the music intervention appeared to have a significant effect of reducing anxiety for women awaiting gynaecological and fertility procedures (p < .001, r = .82).

Conclusions: The use of music forms an acceptable intervention to decrease anxiety in this context and can enhance the experience of women during treatment. Such an increased use of music can provide anxiety management benefits to women undergoing gynaecological and fertility treatments, with these experiences suggesting potential educational benefits to support women through this extremely stressful and complex stage of their life.

Keywords: Anxiety; Anxiety management; Fertility treatment; Gynaecological treatment; Music; Music therapy.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Together with my colleagues Dr Natasha Andreadis, Ms Geena Cheung, and Associate Professor Virginia Stulz, we confirm that Ethical Approval was granted for the Study as a scientific research study. This Ethical Approval was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Western Sydney University, with the approval number of H13273 on 6 June, 2019. Consent for publication: Consent for publication was given as per the Human Research Ethics approval and consent process. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Music star iPad application
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
General preferred music compared to preferred music for relaxation
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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