Effects of a Single Music Therapy Intervention on Anxiety, Discomfort, Satisfaction, and Compliance With Screening Guidelines in Outpatients Undergoing Flexible Sigmoidoscopy

Screening flexible sigmoidoscopy (FS) is an effective tool for the detection of colon cancer. Nonetheless, persons are reluctant to undergo FS for a variety of reasons such as anxiety, discomfort, and the possibility of abnormal findings. Nurses caring for FS patients can implement interventions to allay anxiety and promote comfort in an effort to enhance satisfaction and future compliance. Music therapy is one nonpharmacologic intervention that has been shown to be effective in allaying anxiety, reducing discomfort, and promoting satisfaction in other patient populations. A two-group pretest, posttest experimental design with repeated measures study recruited 64 subjects undergoing FS from one Midwestern tertiary care center. Subjects were randomly assigned to a control condition of usual procedural care or to an experimental condition of music therapy during the examination. State and trait anxieties were measured at pretest. State anxiety, discomfort, satisfaction, and perceived compliance with future screening were measured after the procedure. Subjects in the music group reported less anxiety and discomfort than subjects in the control group. There were no differences on satisfaction ratings or perceived compliance with screening guidelines. Nurses caring for patients undergoing screening FS can offer music therapy as one nonpharmacologic intervention to ameliorate anxiety and reduce discomfort.