Abstract
Depression is a very common mood disorder, resulting in a loss of social function, reduced quality of life and increased mortality. Music interventions have been shown to be a potential alternative for depression therapy but the number of up-to-date research literature is quite limited. We present a review of original research trials which utilize music or music therapy as intervention to treat participants with depressive symptoms. Our goal was to differentiate the impact of certain therapeutic uses of music used in the various experiments. Randomized controlled study designs were preferred but also longitudinal studies were chosen to be included. 28 studies with a total number of 1,810 participants met our inclusion criteria and were finally selected. We distinguished between passive listening to music (record from a CD or live music) (79%), and active singing, playing, or improvising with instruments (46%). Within certain boundaries of variance an analysis of similar studies was attempted. Critical parameters were for example length of trial, number of sessions, participants' age, kind of music, active or passive participation and single- or group setting. In 26 studies, a statistically significant reduction in depression levels was found over time in the experimental (music intervention) group compared to a control (n = 25) or comparison group (n = 2). In particular, elderly participants showed impressive improvements when they listened to music or participated in music therapy projects. Researchers used group settings more often than individual sessions and our results indicated a slightly better outcome for those cases. Additional questionnaires about participants confidence, self-esteem or motivation, confirmed further improvements after music treatment. Consequently, the present review offers an extensive set of comparable data, observations about the range of treatment options these papers addressed, and thus might represent a valuable aid for future projects for the use of music-based interventions to improve symptoms of depression.
Highlights
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician
The results will review the works in terms of demographics, treatment implementation, and diagnostic measures
Individual vs. Group Intervention – Results As postulated by previous literature (Wheeler et al, 2003; Maratos et al, 2008), we differentiated mainly two scenarios based on the number of participants who attended music intervention sessions and referred to them as “group” or “individual.” Group sessions can awaken participants’ social interactions and individual sessions often provides motivation (Wheeler et al, 2003)
Summary
“If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. International studies predict that approximately 322 million (WHO, 2017) of the world’s population suffer from a clinical depression. This disorder can occur from infancy to old age, with women being affected more often than men (WHO, 2017). Depressive suffering is associated with psychological, physical, emotional, and social impairments. This can influence the whole human being in a fundamental way. Mandatory is a systematic constructed therapy process that was created by a board-certified music therapist and requires an individual-specific music selection that is developed uniquely for and together with the patient in one or more sessions. It must be noted that music therapy is offered as a profession-qualifying course of study
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