Efficacy of music therapy and vibroacoustic therapy for pain relief

This Supplement to the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy (NJMT) with the abstracts of the 10th European Music Therapy Conference is a novelty; at the same time, it also continues and extends previous collaborations.NJMT has been engaged in Nordic and European conferences (and sometimes beyond) in several ways.In 2010, we published an issue dedicated to the 6th Nordic Conference on Music Therapy, with selected papers from that conference.In this, Tony Wigram (2010) reflected upon the different types of academic exchangethe rapid, immediate communication at conferences versus the more lasting, verified record in peer-reviewed journalswhich both serve their distinct purpose.The special issue built a bridge between these types by subjecting papers based on conference presentations to peer reviewwhich may explain why the issue appeared a year after the conference (Gold, 2016).A decade earlier, a similar special issue was published with the keynotes of the 3rd Nordic Conference on Music Therapy (Lehtonen, 1997).We also built a bridge in the opposite direction when we produced a special issue with selected reprints of previous articles for the 7th European Music Therapy Congress in 2007 (upon invitation by its organising committee).In the last 3 years, we have started to conduct seminars on scientific writing and peer review at Nordic, European, and World conferences of music therapy (Gold, 2016).The present Supplement, however, is different.Following a tradition that is common in related fields but not so common in music therapy yet, it contains all the abstracts that have been accepted for the conference.It will therefore serve a double role: First, it will be useful for conference participants as a reference during the conference, just like the usual abstract booklet.Second, it is also distributed to the subscribers to the journal, both online and in print, thereby serving to increase the lasting visibility of the conference papers.This is generally important and useful for authors of all types of work, be it qualitative, quantitative, mixed-methods, theoretical, or clinical/practice-based.Additionally, it is vital for authors of systematic reviews to be able to find all studies that meet their inclusion criteria to avoid publication bias (the tendency for studies to be selectively published based on results).So, authors of empirical outcome studies, beware: Even if you choose not to publish your study after this conference, people conducting systematic reviews will still be able to find your study through this Supplement!(It contains several randomised trials, as well as systematic reviews.)It is also interesting to note the variety of European and non-European countries that the abstracts came from.All continents of the world are represented.This may serve as a reminder that, like the Nordic spirit (Gold, 2015), the European spirit can be understood as a mindset rather than only a geographical location.