A pilot study of the effects of music listening for pain relief among burns patients

Abstract

Introduction: The aim of this pilot study was to assess the effects of music listening for pain relief among burns patients during the change of dressings. Methods: Quasi-experimental study was conducted to evaluate if music helps in reducing the intensity of pain experienced by burns patients during wound dressing procedures. A convenience sample of 30 dressing changes were involved. Each dressing change was alternatively assigned to control (not listening to music) and treatment (listening to music) groups. Three assessment tools were used, namely: numeric pain scale, pain behavioural tool, and physiological monitoring. Patients who were given music to listen to were also asked about their experience at the end of the dressing change. Results: Most of the patients experienced little or no pain before dressing change, moderate pain during dressing change and lesser pain thereafter. There were no statistically significant differences in the pain experienced between wound dressing changed with no music listening and wound dressing changed with music listening. Despite a greater proportion of patients being distressed during wound dressing changes without music listening, there was no statistical evidence that music listening had an effect on the patient's distressed status. For wound dressing changes with music listening, patients experienced a lesser degree of change in mean blood pressure and heart rate (not statistically significant) as compared to wound dressing changes without music listening. Conclusion: Preliminary results from this pilot study demonstrated that listening to music might have a positive effect on patient's experience of pain. Large studies are needed to evaluate the impact of music. However many patients verbalised that the soothing music helped to distract them from the pain experience during the dressing changes.