Oct 22 2022 19:54
New research reveals that patients who wait in the emergency department for urgent surgery become less anxious, less painful and more relaxed when listening to music.
Presenting the research before the European Conference on Emergency Medicine, on Wednesday, October 19, nurse Lisa Antonsen, working in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Odense University Hospital in Denmark, said that she found a statistically significant association between listening to music and patients’ reports of reduced pain and improved relaxation. .
Antonsen, who conducted the research as part of her master’s thesis, added: “When I first started working in the emergency department, I noticed that patients, waiting for acute surgery, were often nervous and even anxious. They wanted to know how long the surgery would take and it was impossible to tell them why. The waiting list in the department and the need to prioritize urgent cases So, they faced a lot of uncertainty. I wondered how we could support these patients. I learned that music has been shown to have positive effects on pain, relaxation and well-being in healthcare. But it has not been tested before on patients awaiting acute surgery.
Antonsen invited all patients awaiting emergency surgery in the emergency department to participate in the study, and enrolled 14 men and 16 women, ages 18 to 93. Patients were waiting for surgery for health emergencies such as appendicitis, intestinal obstruction, or cholecystitis. I gave them a 30-minute musical pillow during the waiting period. The pad has a speaker with an MP3 player attached to it. The MP3 player contained MusiCure software for music composed for special purposes.
Before and after using the music pad, Antonsen asked patients to rate their pain, relaxation and well-being on a visual scale ranging from 0 to 10. After listening to music.
“We found that, while using the musical pillow, patients experienced a reduction in pain from a mean score of 4.8 to 3.7. Their relaxation improved from a mean score of 4.6 to 7.6. And their sense of general well-being increased from a mean score of 4.3 to 6.6,” she asserts.
Antonsen continues, “Statistical findings showed a positive association between music, relaxation, general well-being, and acute pain reported by patients prior to surgery. Patients described both physical and mental well-being while listening to music. They felt comfortable and found themselves thinking about something other than the pain and concerns related to surgery. Thus, the musical session provided a break from the intense hospital environment.”
For example, a 65-year-old woman told the researcher, “It made me feel so relaxed, I didn’t think for a moment about being here in the hospital. I just thought about being outside in nature and listening to the birdsong. Another thing happened for a while.”
Speaking at the European Congress of Emergency Medicine, the researcher described one of the women in the emergency department in November 2020, saying, “(The patient) was upset, her face was tense, you could realize that she had just cried. (The patient) said it was a difficult day. During the music session, She lay quietly in bed with her eyes closed. When the session was over she said, “Not yet,” and then smiled at me. She seemed more relaxed.
The researcher recommended, “For music to successfully promote mental and physical health, patients should not be disturbed while listening to it. Therefore, attention should be paid to the current organizational structure of emergency departments in order to successfully implement musical interventions.”
Source: Al Ittihad – Abu Dhabi
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