Abstract

This study found the effectiveness of music therapy on level of anxiety among patients diagnosed with cancer.

Methodology: A quasi- experimental design was adopted for this study. Convenience sampling technique was used to select the samples from the selected hospital who met the inclusion criteria. The samples selected were conveniently assigned to the experimental group (30) and control group (30). The demographic data was collected using the demographic proforma and pre-test level of anxiety was assessed using the State Trait Anxiety Inventory scale for both experimental and control group. Music Therapy was provided for 3 days in two sessions, for experimental group samples along with the hospital interventions, while the control group samples underwent normal hospital intervention. Post-test level of anxiety was assessed using State Trait Anxiety Inventory scale for both the groups. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The findings of the study revealed that there was a constant decrease in mean anxiety scores from 66.27±2.86 (pre-test) to 39.27±5.112 (post-test) in the experimental group, which was in contrast to the mean anxiety score of the control group, which did not show much decrease. The mean anxiety scores of the control group pre-test was 64.6±3.2 and that of post-test was 63.00±2.9. To determine the effectiveness of music therapy on level of anxiety of the experimental group paired ‘t’ test was used. The calculated ‘t’value was 31.93 greater than the table value 2.75 indicating music therapy was effective in reducing the anxiety among cancer patients. Unpaired ‘t’ test was used for comparing the post-test change in level of anxiety among samples in the experimental group. The calculated ‘t’ test value 23.9 of change in the anxiety score from pre-test assessment to post-test assessment was greater than the table value 2.39 this indicated that music therapy was effective in reducing anxiety. There was no significant association between level of anxiety and demographic performa.

Conclusion: music therapy was effective in reducing anxiety among cancer patients.