The Effects of Music Therapy on the Preoperative Anxiety of Surgical Patients

Park, Sung Hee; Park, Kyung Sook

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to elucidate the effects of music therapy on the preoperative anxiety of surgerial patients. The research design was a nonequivalent control, group non-synch-ronized design. The data were collected during the period from January 4 to March 17, 1999 at C-University hospital in Seoul. The subjects were sixty patients who had surgery under general anesthesia and had undergone laparotomy. They were assigned to two groups, thirty to the experimental group and thirty to the control group. They also did not have any complication, were alert enough to be interviewed and agreed willingly to participate in this study. The tool of Trait Anxiety Inventory was used to measure trait-anxiety on all patients and the Visual Analogue Scale(VAS) was used to measure state-anxiety on all patients. And systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate, and blood sugar levels were collected a the day before surgery and the preoperative period. The experimental group received music therapy with self-selected music tapes after choosing from a Music Preference Questionnaire, while the control group didn't receive music therapy. Data were analyzed by X2-test, t-test, paired t-test. The results of this study are summarized as follows: 1. The preoperative state anxiety of the experimental group was re-markably lower than that of the control group. 2. Decreasing rate in the vital signs of the experimental group was remarkably lower than that of the control group. 3. The preoperative blood sugar of the experimental group was remarkably lower than that of the control group. According to these results, Music Therapy can be regarded as an effective nursing intervention that relieves preoperative anxiety of surgical patients and helper stabilize vital signs. From this study, the following recommend-ations can be made: 1. In order to decrease surgical patient's preoperative anxiety, I suggest the nursing intervention should go side by side with music therapy.