The use of music during the immediate postoperative recovery period

AORN Journal, April, 1997 by Regina M. Heiser, Kathleen Chiles, Mary Fudge, Susan E. Gray

Perioperative nurses are responsible for ensuring therapeutic environments for surgical patients and their family members. As we incorporate more biotechnologic tools into the care of surgical patients, thus introducing more noise and stress, we should remember that the first nurse researcher--Florence Nightingale--recognized that unnecessary noise hurts patients.(21) Perioperative nurses must continue to study the effects of surgical environments on patients' pain and anxiety levels and satisfaction and evaluate the efficacy of interventions, such as music, on making these environments therapeutic.

NOTES

(1.) Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, Acute Pain Management in Infants, Children, and Adolescents: Operative or Medical Procedures and Trauma, Clinical Practice Guideline (Rockville, Md: US Department of Health and Human Services, 1992).

(2.) Ibid.

(3.) M McCaffery, "Nursing approaches to nonpharmacological pain control," International Journal of Nursing Studies 27 (January 1990) 1-5.

(4.) M Donovan, "Cancer pain: You can help!" Nursing Clinics of North America 17 (December 1982) 713-728; R G Locsin, "The effect of music on the pain of selected postoperative patients," Journal of Advanced Nursing 6 (January 1981) 19-25; B Whipple, N J Glynn, "Quantification of the effects of listening to music as a noninvasive method of pain control," Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice 6 (Spring 1992) 43-58; L Heitz, T Symreng, F L Scamman," Effect of music therapy in the postanesthesia care unit: A nursing intervention," Journal of Post Anesthesia Nursing 7 (February 1992) 22-31; L Zimmerman et al, "Effects of music in patients who had chronic cancer pain," Western Journal of Nursing Research 11 (June 1989) 298-309; G Kaempf, M E Amodei, "The effect of music on anxiety: A research study," AORN Journal 50 (July 1989) 112-118; K Stevens, "Patients' perceptions of music during surgery," Journal of Advanced Nursing 15 (September 1990) 1045 1051; A Kumar et al, "The effect of music on ketamine-induced emergence phenomena," Anaesthesia 47 (May 1992) 438-439; Heitz, Symreng, Scamman, "Effect of music therapy in the postanesthesia care unit: A nursing intervention," 22-31.

(5.) J D Cook, "The therapeutic use of music: A literature review," Nursing Forum 20 no 3 (1981) 252-266.

(6.) D Lane, "Music therapy: A gift beyond measure," Oncology Nursing Forum 19 (July 1992) 863867

(7.) A Eisenman, B Cohen, "Music therapy for patients undergoing regional anesthesia," AORN Journal 62 (December 1995) 947-950; P Augustin, A Hains, "Effect of music on ambulatory surgery patients' preoperative anxiety," AORN Journal 63 (April 1996) 750-758; K B Gaberson, "The effect of humorous and musical distraction on preoperative anxiety," AORN Journal 62 (November 1995) 784-791.

(8.) Locsin, "The effect of music on the pain of selected postoperative patients," 19-25.

(9.) Stevens, "Patients' perceptions of music during surgery," 1045-1050.

(10.) Kumar et al, "The effect of music on ketamine-induced emergence phenomena," 438-439.