Music Therapy for Palliative Care Patients

Queen's University Belfast

Status: Completed

Conditions: Palliative Care

Treatments: Behavioral: Music therapy

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02791048

B16/27

Details and patient eligibility

About

This study aims to find out if music therapy is effective in improving the quality of life of palliative care patients. It will do this by comparing palliative care patients who receive music therapy with those who do not receive music therapy.

Full description

Quality of life (QOL) is very important for palliative care patients, and includes the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of a patient's life. Music therapy is often used to help palliative care patients and there is some evidence that music therapy helps improve their quality of life, especially in relation to reducing levels of pain. Many palliative care patients and their families have also said that music therapy is helpful. However, more research is needed to help healthcare providers and funders decide if music therapy really is a useful treatment for patients receiving palliative care.

Enrollment: 51 patients

Sex: All

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Only patients deemed able to engage with interactive music therapy will be invited to join the study. Eligibility will be assessed by a clinician during inpatient admission using the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) scale and the Abbreviated Mental Test (AMT).

• Patients will be eligible if they have an ECOG performance status of 0, 1, 2 or 3 (0 indicating the patient is asymptomatic, 1 the patient is symptomatic but fully ambulatory, 2 the patient is symptomatic and confined to bed for less than 50% of the day, and 3 the patient is symptomatic and confined to bed for more than 50% of the day)) indicating they are able to engage with interactive music therapy. - Eligible patients will also have a score of 7 or more on the AMT, indicating they are capable of providing meaningful informed consent and accurate responses to the study's primary outcome measurement tool.
• Patients with communication difficulties will also be eligible if they are able to indicate their responses to the questionnaire.
• Musical skills are not required. Prior musical skills will not lead to exclusion from the study. The patient must freely consent to participation following receipt of information about the trial.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients will be excluded from the study if they have an ECOG performance status of 4 (4 indicating the patient is severely symptomatic and completely bedridden) or a score of 6 or less on the AMT, indicating they may not be capable of providing fully informed consent or accurate responses to the study's primary outcome measurement tool.
• Participants who decide not to consent will be excluded from the trial. Patients will be assured that this decision will have no implications for the care that they receive.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Treatment

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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51 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental Group

Experimental group

Description:

Music therapy for up to 45 minutes twice a week for three weeks, in addition to usual care from the hospice multidisciplinary team.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Music therapy

Control Group

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual care only from the hospice multidisciplinary team. The dose and frequency of usual care will be as deemed appropriate by the hospice practitioner in charge of their treatment.