Effects of Listening to Music During Blood Pressure Check in Primary Care Clinic Settings

Abstract

Background: Nearly half of adults in the United States (47% or 116 million) have hypertension and only 1 in 4 adults (24%) have their blood pressure under control. In 2020, more than 670, 000 death had hypertension as contributing cause. Listening to sounds of music can lead to reduction in blood pressure which was demonstrated in previous studies. To our knowledge it is the first study done in busy clinical practice with control group evaluating effects of 30 to 50 seconds of listening to music while blood pressure measurement was repeated. Methods:102 consecutive patients seen in primary care clinic from October 4, 2022, through December 14, 2022, were verbally consented to listening to the solo saxophone music while blood pressure measurement was repeated after initial blood pressure measurement revealed systolic blood above 139 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) and diastolic blood pressure above 89 mmHg. They were compared to 100 consecutive control patients, who were presented to clinic at the same time with the same blood pressure elevation parameters for medical assistant blood pressure check and no music intervention was done when blood pressure was repeated. Results:Systolic blood pressure drop in the study group with music intervention was 29.26 mmHg compared to 11.17 mmHg in control subjects ( P value .006) and diastolic blood pressure drop was from 5.99 mmHg to 3.98 mmHg ( P value .03). When separated by gender large systolic blood pressure drop was seen in control group in female patients 30.52 mmHg compared to controls 11.4 ( P value .002) but diastolic blood pressure did not drop significantly 5.43 mmHg to 4.41 mmHg decrease ( P value .184). Male subjects had significant drop in systolic and diastolic blood pressure in study group compared to control: 24.68 mmHg to 10.71 mmHg ( P value .001) and 8 mmHg to 3.71 mmHg ( P value .02), respectively. Conclusion: No significant extra time was required to implement recorded on smart phone music during repeat blood pressure check, which lead to significant improvement in blood pressure levels which could be lifesaving, taking into consideration harmful effects of the elevated blood pressure. This practice could be implemented in many busy primary care clinics and could lead to more relaxing patients’ experience and better blood pressure control. Patients may be advised to consider listening to music as a stress reduction in post pandemic time.