Upplevelser och effekter av musikterapi hos patienter inom palliativ vård : en litteraturöversikt

Sammanfattning

Background The aim of palliative care is to ease suffering and facilitate quality of life for patients with progressive or terminal disease or injury. This form of care is described as a meaningful part of person-centered healthcare with the objective is to ease physical, psychological, spiritual and social suffering. The palliative care approach includes competent assessments from the patient’s physical, psychological, existential and social perspective to enable a worthy life with best possible quality of life until death. Patients in need of palliative care often suffer from symptoms that are difficult to treat with standard pharmacological means. At the same time, palliative caregivers report moral stress as good care cannot be given to the desired extent. Therefore, there is a requirement of complementary treatment methods within palliative care. Aim The aim of this study was to explore the palliative care patients' experiences with music therapy and the effects of this treatment. Method This study was accomplished as a non-systematic review article with implementation of the systematic method. The results of this literature review was based on 15 scientific articles with quantitative, qualitative and mix-method design. Articles relevant to this study were quality-reviewed according to the Sophiahemmet University assessment basis for quality review for scientific classification of articles. The analyzed content was synthesized in five main categories. Results Five main categories and ten subcategories were examined in this study. Results of this study demonstrated that the majority of the participants who received music therapy interventions experienced a pain relieving effect. This study also demonstrated that music therapy facilitates the experience of well-being, relaxation and reduced psychological suffering. Majority of the patients who received music therapy described positive emotions, meanwhile music therapy could in some cases contribute to thoughts about illness and the loss of autonomy which could lead to anxiety. Simultaneously, some patients found music therapy to reduce anxiety and experienced facilitated spiritual well-being. Overall, the music therapy had a high acceptance rate and comparatively few side effects. Conclusions This study displayed that the majority of the palliative care patients acquired positiveexperiences with music therapy related to physical, psychological, existential and social health.