The effect of music therapy on chronic pain, quality of life and quality of sleep in adolescents after transthoracic occlusion of ventricular septal defect

Objective: To investigate the effect of music therapy on chronic pain, quality of life, and quality of sleep in adolescent patients after transthoracic occlusion of ventricular septal defects. Methods: Patients were divided into 2 groups based on whether they received music therapy: a control group and a music group. The music group received 30 minutes of music therapy every day for 6 months after surgery. Patients in the control group received standard treatment and had 30 minutes of quiet time every day for 6 months after surgery. The short-form McGill pain questionnaire (SF-MPQ), the SF-36 scale and the Karolinska Sleep Questionnaire (KSQ) was used as the evaluation tool for chronic pain, quality of life, and quality of sleep, respectively. Results: In terms of the degree of postoperative chronic pain, the Pain Rating Index (PRI) emotion item score in the SF-MPQ evaluation of the music group was significantly lower than that of the control group (1.6 ± 1.1 versus 2.2 ± 0.9). The role emotional (RE) scores of the SF-36 in the music group were significantly higher than that in the control group (77.35 ± 18.55 versus 42.66 ± 22.63). KSQ scores were significantly higher in the music group than in the control group for sleep status (4.1 ± 1.0 versus 3.3 ± 0.9), falling asleep (3.9 ± 1.1 versus 3.1 ± 1.0), and not feeling refreshed by sleep (3.6 ± 1.3 versus 2.7 ± 0.9) (P < .05). Conclusion: This study preliminarily showed that music therapy could effectively reduce patients’ chronic pain and improve quality of life and sleep after surgery. These results suggest that music therapy may be an essential therapy worth considering in managing patients’ postoperative recovery after cardiovascular surgery.