Effectiveness of five-element music therapy in cancer patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis

To systematically evaluate the effectiveness of five-element music therapy on anxiety, depression, quality of life (QoL), sleep quality and Karnofsky performance score (KPS) in cancer patients. We searched English databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science) and Chinese databases (CNKI, WanFang, CBM and VIP database) from the inception to December 25, 2020. Two investigators independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed risk of bias according to the eligibility criteria. The RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform the meta-analysis. A total of 22 studies, 2053 people with cancer were included. Meta-analysis showed that five-element music therapy had a significant difference for relieving depression (SMD = −1.11, 95% CI: 1.41 to −0.82, P < 0.00001), QoL (SMD = 1.41, 95% CI:0.58 to 2.23, P = 0.0008), sleep quality (MD = −1.73, 95% CI: 2.34 to −1.12, P < 0.00001), and KPS (MD = 4.75, 95% CI:2.31 to 7.18, P = 0.0001). And five-element music therapy did not show a positive effect on anxiety (SMD = −0.60, 95% CI: 1.47 to 0.27, P = 0.17). Five-element music therapy had a positive effect on depression, QoL, sleep quality, and KPS in cancer patients, while did not show a positive effect on anxiety. Future researchers need to optimize the research program and conduct more high-quality, large sample, multi-center randomized controlled studies. Besides, it would be helpful for future researchers to explain the five-element music therapy being examined and how it is potentially useful in western contexts.