The influence of music therapy on mental well-being among postoperative patients of total knee arthroplasty (TKA)

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to investigate whether music therapy affects immediate postoperative well-being among patients who had undergone TKA surgery in the recovery unit.

Method

A randomized controlled trial was conducted recruiting patients from Hospital Melaka, Malaysia. Postoperative TKA patients with good hearing and visual acuity, fully conscious and prescribed with patients controlled analgesia (PCA) were randomized to either intervention or control groups using a sealed envelope. Patients in the intervention group received usual care with additional music therapy during recovery, while patients in the control group received the usual care provided by the hospital. Two factors identified affecting mental well-being were the pain (measured using numerical rating scale) and anxiety (measured using a visual analog scale) at five different minutes’ points (0, 10, 20, 30, and 60).

Results

A total of 56 (control: 28, intervention: 28) postoperative TKA patients consented in the study. There was no difference in baseline characteristics between the two groups (p > 0.05). Using Mann–Whitney U tests, patients in music therapy group showed significantly lower numerical pain score at 60 min (p = 0.045) whereas there was no significant difference between the two groups at all time points for anxiety scores (p > 0.05). In the intervention group, Friedman tests showed that there was a significant difference in numerical pain (χ² = 36.957, df = 4, p < 0.001) and anxiety score across times (χ² = 18.545, p = 0.001).

Conclusions

This study found that pain score decreases over time among patients in the music therapy group while no effect is seen for anxiety. It is suggested that music therapy could not affect postoperative TKA patients’ mental well-being. Nonetheless, patients reported better pain score despite the small sample.