Abstract
Introduction Nasal septal surgery is one of the most common surgeries performed by otolaryngology
surgeons; however, anxiety before surgery and postoperative pain remain a significant
cause of morbidity. The search for a complimentary modality to reduce the symptoms
and side effects has gained momentum in recent years.
Objective Music therapy is an exciting and inexpensive modality in this regard, but scientific
evidence in terms of randomized clinical trials is still lacking for common otolaryngology
surgeries. Hence, we performed the present study.
Method The sample of our study was composed of 59 patients, 30 of which were submitted to
conventional medicine, while the remaining 29 were submitted to both conventional
medicine and music therapy with music of their own choice, with 2 sessions per day,
each lasting 30 minutes. This was performed using the generalized anxiety disorder-7
scale and the pain visual analogue scale until postoperative day 2, when the patients
were discharged from the hospital.
Result On comparing the anxiety and pain scores between the two groups, the group who underwent
music therapy showed a statistically significant reduction in anxiety both preoperatively
(p < 0.0001) and postoperatively (p < 0.0001), as well as reduced postoperative pain starting from day 0 (p < 0.001), which continued until postoperative day 2 (p < 0.001).
Conclusion Music therapy is an effective adjunct in the control of anxiety and postoperative
pain following nasal septal surgery.
Keywords music therapy - anxiety - pain management - morbidity - nasal surgical procedure
