The Effect of Music Therapy Intervention on Anxiety of Patients Receiving Radiotherapy

• Main Authors: Chen-Lee Chen, 陳麗珍
• Other Authors: Tze-Fang Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/81919463576592666611

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 護理學系暨研究所 === 100 === Patients who have undergone radiotherapy usually face frequent and complicated treatment schedules, producing feelings and responses of anxiety such as an increase in heart rate, blood pressure, respiration speed and a decrease in blood oxygen. If patients continue to experience pretreatment anxiety, termination of their treatment could result and in turn influence treatment progress. Thus, it is necessary to give patients appropriate help to relieve them from anxiety. In recent years, the use of music therapy in relieving all types of anxiety has been approved both locally and internationally. However, there has been no such study in radiotherapy treatment patients in Taiwan. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of music therapy on pretreatment anxiety and physiologic responses in patients. The quasi-experimentally designed study included 160 patients who received radiotherapy treatment in a medical center in New Taipei City. 100 were in the experiment group while 60 in the control group. Besides the routine nursing care given to both groups, the experiment group also listened to 15 minutes of music. The study showed that lowering of anxiety in both state and trait that resulted from therapy was statistically significantly. Also significant was the difference in the lowering of state anxiety between the experiment group and the control group. As for physiological effects, there was a statistically significance difference in the lowering effect of both systolic blood pressure and respiratory rate between the study and control groups. Musical intervention is a simple and economic method. It has been proven through this study that it can lower anxiety and can be used widely in patients receiving radiotherapy. Nurses of nursing care units can also listen to music to decrease anxiety and pressure experienced from dealing with patients. This can upgrade the nursing quality during radiotherapy treatment and increase the satisfactory rate among patients.