Effectiveness of Music Therapy as Adjunct to Standard Pharmacological Analgesia on Post-Operative Pain Intensity, Anxiety, and Analgesic Consumption Among Patients Following
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Abstract
Post-operative pain management represents one of the most fundamental responsibilities of perioperative nursing practice. Inadequately controlled post-operative pain increases risk of pulmonary complications, deep vein thrombosis, impaired wound healing, prolonged hospital stay, and development of chronic pain syndromes, while excessive reliance on opioid analgesia carries risks of respiratory depression, nausea, sedation, and opioid use disorder. Music therapy — a non-pharmacological intervention involving the purposeful use of music to achieve therapeutic goals — has demonstrated efficacy in reducing pain perception across diverse clinical contexts through neuromodulatory mechanisms involving the endogenous opioid system, attentional distraction, and autonomic nervous system modulation.
This randomised controlled trial (RCT) evaluated the effectiveness of patient-chosen music therapy as an adjunct to standard WHO analgesic ladder pharmacotherapy on post-operative pain intensity, anxiety, analgesic consumption, and length of hospital stay among 284 adult patients following elective abdominal surgery in three secondary care hospitals in Karnataka. Patients were randomised 1:1 to receive music therapy (30-minute sessions of patient-selected music, three times daily, on post-operative days 1–3) plus standard analgesia, or standard analgesia alone. Pain was assessed using the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) and Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) at 4, 8, 24, 48, and 72 hours post-operatively. The music therapy group demonstrated significantly lower NRS pain scores at all time-points (p<0.001), 37.3% reduction in tramadol consumption, 33.3% reduction in paracetamol doses, 52.9% reduction in rescue morphine usage, and 0.8-day shorter hospital stay (3.8 vs. 4.6 days, p=0.008).
Keywords: music therapy, post-operative pain, analgesic consumption, randomised controlled trial, anxiety, hospital stay, non-pharmacological pain management, NRS, BPI, STAI, abdominal surgery, nursing intervention, WHO analgesic ladder
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