Music interventions for wellness in healthy populations : a systematic review

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to synthesize research studies in music therapy interventions for wellness. Thirty three experimental research studies published from 2000 - 2015 in the Science Direct, ProQuest, Google Scholar, and university database met the inclusion criteria of this review. A coding form consisting of a) publications and researchers, b) research methodology, and c) research content and music interventions were developed as a research instrument for collecting the characteristic data from the research studies. Data was analyzed using the SPSS program and presented with descriptive statistics (frequency and percentages). The result of the systematic review revealed that the greatest number of studies between 2000 - 2005 were published in journal in the field of music therapy (42.4%). Most experimental designs were randomized control-group pretest-posttest (39.4%). Most participants were students (36.4%) ranged between 1-50 people per session (42.2%). Almost all studies reported their outcome in the emotional domain (70.0%), and focused on anxiety and work performance (16.6%) as their therapeutic goal. Passive music listening (60.6%) was mainly used as an intervention strategy in session and music selection were selected by the researchers based on research evidences (48.5%). Recorded music was mostly used in music interventions (69.7%). The duration of sessions was mainly presented in less than 30 minutes (57.6%) and they met the participants only one time (48.5%).;