Effects of Guitar Accompaniment Style on Working Alliance, Session Impact, and Pain With Hospitalized Patients on a Solid Organ Transplant Unit: A Randomized Pilot Study.

Previous literature suggests that music therapy can be an effective psychosocial treatment for solid organ transplant patients, but there is a lack of research concerning how guitar accompaniment style might impact aspects of the therapeutic relationship. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of guitar accompaniment style on working alliance, session impact, and pain with hospitalized solid organ transplant patients. In this single-session study, participants (N = 20) were randomly assigned to either a music therapy intervention with simple guitar accompaniment (SGA) condition or a similar condition with complex guitar accompaniment (CGA) and then completed a questionnaire measuring working alliance and session impact. Analyses indicated significant between-group differences in the positivity and arousal subscales of the session impact measure, with participants in the CGA condition having more favourable scores than participants in the SGA condition. Although there was no significant between-group difference in other measures, there tended to be slight mean differences consistently favouring the CGA condition. Overall results indicated that music therapy intervention with CGA had slight tendencies to impact working alliance, session impact, and pain more positively than with SGA. Limitations, implications, and suggestions for future research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]