They found that following the therapy, the patients’ average pain score dropped from 4.8 to 3.7. Their general well-being climbed from an average score of 4.3 to 6.6 and their relaxation increased from an average of 4.6 to 7.6.

A new study presented at today’s meeting of the European Emergency Medicine Congress reveals that patients waiting for urgent surgery felt less worried, more relaxed, and in less pain if they lie on a musical pillow.

Ms. Lisa Antonsen, a nurse working in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Odense University Hospital in Odense, Denmark, reported at the meeting that she had discovered a statistically significant association between patients’ reports of reduced pain and improved relaxation and well-being when they listened to music.

“When I first started in the emergency department,” explained the author, “I noticed that patients waiting for acute surgery were often nervous and even anxious.” 

According to her, patients waiting for their surgery “wanted to know how long it would be until their surgery and this was impossible to tell them due to the waiting list in the department and the need to prioritise urgent cases. So they experienced a lot of uncertainty.

“I wondered how we could support these patients. I knew that music has been shown to have positive effects on pain, relaxation and well-being in other healthcare settings, but it has never been tested before with patients waiting for acute surgery.”

She enlisted 14 men and 16 women aged 18 to 93 waiting for urgent surgery in the study. Appendicitis, intestinal blockage, abscesses, and gall bladder inflammation were among the urgent conditions for which these patients were awaiting surgery. During the delay, she gave them a music pillow. The pillow had an MP3 player and a speaker. The MP3 player had a program called MusiCure that played music that was made just for it.

Ms. Antonsen had patients rate their levels of pain, relaxation, and overall sense of well-being on a visual scale from 0 to 10 before and after using the music cushion. After 15 patients listened to music, they were asked about it, and their answers helped with the qualitative part of the study.

“We found that while using the music pillow, the patients experienced a decrease in pain from an average score of 4.8 to 3.7. Their relaxation improved from an average of 4.6 to 7.6, and their feeling of general well-being increased from an average score of 4.3 to 6.6,” she added.

“The statistical results demonstrated a positive association between music and acute pre-operative patients’ self-reported pain, relaxation and general well-being. The patients described both physical and mental well-being while listening to the music. They felt relaxed and found themselves thinking about something other than the pain and the worries related to the surgery. Thus, the music session provided a break from the acute hospital environment.”

A 65-year-old woman, for example, told the authors, “It made me relax and, for a moment, I did not think about being here at the hospital. I just came to think about being outside in nature listening to birdsong. For a moment, something else happened .”

Some of the notes Ms. Antonsen took during the qualitative portion of the study were presented at the congress. For example, she talked about one woman in the emergency department in November 2020, “she was upset. Her face was tense, and you could tell that she had just cried. She said that it had been a tough day. During the music session, she lay calmly in bed with her eyes closed. When the music session ended, she said, ‘not already’. Then she smiled at me. She seemed to be more comfortable.”

The busy and always-changing environment of an emergency room, on the other hand, made it hard to listen to music.

“For music to successfully promote mental and physical well-being, patients should be undisturbed while listening to it. Therefore, attention needs to be paid to the current organisational structure of emergency departments in order to implement music interventions successfully,” added the author.

Since the study was an observational one and the patients weren’t randomly assigned to get a music pillow or not, it can’t prove that having access to a music pillow causes the improvements in pain, relaxation, and well-being. It can only show that having access to a music pillow is linked to those things.

“A larger study needs to be conducted to determine if music itself has an effect on pain, relaxation and general well-being,” according to the author. According to her, the study’s combination of quantitative and qualitative research enabled the various methodologies to complement one another and offer unique insights.

Ms. Antonsen’s emergency department is still making use of the music pillow utilized in the pilot project, which they intend to become a permanent fixture.

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