NURSING INTERVENTION: THE USE OF MUSIC TO REDUCE PAIN
According to Davis, Thaut, and Gfeller (1998), music therapy is the prescribed use of music and musical interventions for the purpose of restoring, maintaining and improving emotional, physical, physiological and spiritual health and well-being. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of music interventions as a clinical application which can be used by nurses to help people deal with pain.
Nursing Application: Use of Music Interventions for Pain
McCaffrey and Freeman (2003) conducted a study examining the effects of a music intervention for elderly patients with osteoarthritis. The experimental group listened to classical music for 20 minutes a day for 14 days while the control group was required to sit quietly for 20 minutes a day for 14 days.
All subjects were asked to complete the Short Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) on day 1, 7, and 14 of the study. T-test comparisons of the control and experimental groups showed that there was, over time, a significant decrease in the pain of the experimental group. It was concluded that the music intervention was an effective nursing intervention for the reduction of chronic osteoarthritis pain in community-dwelling elderly patients with osteoarthritis.
In another study of a music intervention, Schorr (1993) examined for the effects of music on women suffering chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis. A sample of 30 women were repeatedly assessed (using the McGill Pain Questionnaire) for a six month period.
Pain information was collected both before and after women listened to music of their particular choice. The analysis of data (using the Number of Words Chosen (NWC) and the Pain Rating Index-Rank [PRI(R)] of the McGill Pain Questionnaire, showed decreases in pain over time. Moreover, the women themselves were said to have been personally transformed in terms of being able to cope with their illness...