Background: This study was designed to determine whether music (M), or music in combination with therapeutic suggestions (M/TS) could improve the postoperative recovery in the immediate postoperative in daycare surgery.
Methods: One-hundred and eighty-two unpremedicated patients who underwent varicose vein or open inguinal hernia repair surgery under general anaesthesia were randomly assigned to (a) listening to music (b) music in combination with therapeutic suggestions or (c) blank tape in the immediate postoperative period. The surgical technique, anaesthesia and postoperative analgesia were standardized. Analgesia, the total requirement of morphine, nausea, fatigue, well-being, anxiety, headache, urinary problems, heart rate and oxygen saturation were studied as outcome variables.
Results: Pain intensity (VAS) was significantly lower (P = 0.002) in the M (2.1), and the M/TS (1.9) group compared with the control group (2.9) and a higher oxygen saturation in M (99.2%) and M/TS (99.2%) group compared with the control (98.0%), P < 0.001, were found. No differences were noted in the other outcome variables.
Conclusion: This controlled study has demonstrated that music with or without therapeutic suggestions in the early postoperative period has a beneficial effect on patients' experience of analgesia. Although statistically significant, the improvement in analgesia is modest in this group of patients with low overall pain levels.
Music has characteristic psychological and physiological effects on humans, and can also be used as a source of distraction in conscious patients (1). To increase the benefit of medication, patients can use soothing music or music in combination with relaxation in the postoperative period as a-non-pharmacological method to manage postoperative pain (1, 2). Listening to music can also modulate the human's response to stress (3, 4), increase satisfaction of the peri-operative care (5) and studies have shown that music can be used as an adjunct during therapeutic suggestions (6). However, other studies have not found improvement with postoperative music intervention (7–9). These studies involve small numbers of participants and maybe therefore lacked power to detect beneficial outcomes (10). To our knowledge there are no studies with music in combination with therapeutic suggestions, during emergence from anaesthesia. It is possible that patients may be more receptive to the beneficial effect of music or music in combination with therapeutic suggestions during the early postoperative period as opposed to late postoperative period.
The study hypothesis was that music alone or music combined with therapeutic suggestions during emergence from anaesthesia in the immediate postoperative period has an impact on the patient's postoperative recovery.