Article Text
Abstract
Objectives Several reviews and meta-analyses have reported on music therapy for physical and emotional well-being among patients with cancer. However, the duration of music therapy offered may range from less than 1 hour to several hours. The aim of this study is to assess whether longer duration of music therapy is associated with different levels of improvement in physical and mental well-being.
Methods Ten studies were included in this paper, reporting on the endpoints of quality of life and pain. A meta-regression, using an inverse-variance model, was performed to assess the impact of total music therapy time. A sensitivity analysis was conducted for the outcome of pain, among low risk of bias trials.
Results Our meta-regression found a trend for positive association between greater total music therapy time and improved better pain control, but it was not statistically significant.
Conclusion There is a need for more high-quality studies examining music therapy for patients with cancer, with a focus on total music therapy time and patient-related outcomes including quality of life and pain.
- cancer
- pain
- quality of life
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Footnotes
Twitter @ElizabethPrsic
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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