The Effectiveness of Music Therapy for Terminally Ill Patients: A Meta-Analysis and Systematic Review

Abstract Context The quality of death has increasingly raised concern because of the physical and psychological suffering of patients with advanced disease. Music therapy has been widely used in palliative care; however, its physical and mental effectiveness remains unclear. Objective To assess the effectiveness of music therapy during palliative care in improving physiology and psychology outcomes. Methods Randomized controlled trials evaluating music therapy for terminally ill patients were searched and included from inception up to April 25, 2018. The quality of the studies was assessed using the risk of bias tool recommended by the Cochrane Handbook V.5.1.0. Results In this study, 11 randomized controlled trials (inter-rater agreement, κ = 0.86) involving 969 participants were included. The quality of the included studies ranged from moderate to high. Compared with general palliative care, music therapy can reduce pain (standardized mean difference: −0.44, 95% confidence interval: −0.60 to −0.27, P P Conclusion This meta-analysis study demonstrated that music therapy served as an effective intervention to alleviate pain and psychological symptoms of terminally ill patients. However, considering the limitation of the quantity of the studies included, these results would need to be further confirmed.