Music effective to alleviate the patient from their pain, stress and anxiety following caesarean section
Inadequate analgesia significantly increases postoperative stress and anxiety among patients. Effective analgesia is required postoperatively for any obstetric or gynaecological procedures. As a therapeutic use, music has been used for treatment of various diseases including preoperative, intraoperative and postoperatively in surgical procedures as a supplement to pharmacologic analgesia. Music therapy has been used as a non-pharmacologic therapy in reducing pain during postoperative period in many studies due to its advantages such economically efficient, highly feasible and associated with minimal risk of adverse effects, but there is very limited evidence regarding its effectiveness.
Postoperatively patients very commonly experience anxiety and stress for which opioids and anxiolytics are used. This may prolong the recovery of the patients due to their sedative and emetic properties. The use of music therapy in immediate post-operative period along with other modalities may be very beneficial for these patients. Other than pharmacological, several other medicinal therapy have been tried to reduce postoperative pain, one of which includes music therapy. Music should be offered as an integral part of pain management especially in surgical patients and it has a potential to become an adjunct standard of care in postoperative pain. There are very few studies that analyze the effect of music on pain and anxiety in the post-operative period in our population. There is insufficient evidence to determine whether music is effective for pain relief in these patients. Therefore, this study was done to ascertain the effect of music listening during postoperative period as a means of reducing pain, anxiety, distress and analgesic requirement in patients undergoing cesarean section.
This prospective quasi experimental study was conducted on 94 antenatal patients scheduled to undergo caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia. They were assigned on every alternate week to either Music Group (1) or Silence Group (2). Group-1 consisted of patients receiving standard care along with music while Group 2 included patients receiving only standard care. The visual analog scale and Maternal satisfaction questionnaire was used to record maternal pain perception, anxiety and any additional analgesia requirement.
Among both the groups the pain score according to the VAS Scale shows that 61% of patients had moderate pain and 48% in Group 1 had VAS<4/10 which was significant(P<0.05). The music was delivered by Bluetooth speakers and 93.6% were satisfied with it. Many patients (55%) found it to be effective in reducing the postoperative pain. Around, 85% of patients opted for music in their postoperative management if undergoing any other operative procedure in future.
Numerous hospitals around the world give support to the labouring women, to have their choice of music, aromatherapy, while giving birth so as to reduce their stress and anxiety during labour. Similar technique like using music as an adjunct to pharmacological management in postoperative women after surgical birth can be helpful to reduce and divert their attention from the pain, stress including postpartum anxiety and to take care of their newborn. Most of patients were happy and satisfied at various levels with the music provided. The acceptance and the positive attitude of the patients towards the dulcet music is so gratifying that music should be encouraged as a part of management in obstetric and gynaecological patients.
Source: Shetty et al. / Indian Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Research 2025;12(2):211–215
