Effects of Educational Music Therapy on State Hope for Recovery in Acute Care Mental Health Inpatients: A Cluster-Randomized Effectiveness Study

• Main Author: Michael J. Silverman
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-10-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Mental Health; Music Therapy; Recovery; educational; hope; State hope
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01569/full

Background: There has been an increasing emphasis on recovery as the expectation for people with mental health disorders. Purpose: The purpose of this effectiveness study is to determine if group-based educational music therapy can immediately impact state hope for recovery in acute care mental health patients. Research questions included: Will acute care mental health inpatients who participate in a single music therapy session have higher agency and pathway aspects of state hope for recovery than patients in a control condition? Will there be differences in state hope for recovery as a result of hope-oriented songwriting or lyric analysis interventions?Method: Participants (N = 169) were cluster randomized to one of three single-session conditions: lyric analysis, songwriting, or wait-list control. Results: There was no significant between-group difference. However, both music therapy conditions tended to have slightly higher mean pathway, agency, and total state hope scores than the control condition even within the temporal parameters of a single music therapy session. There was no between-group difference in the songwriting and lyric analysis interventions. Conclusions: Although not significant, results support that educational music therapy may impact state hope for recovery within the temporal parameters of a single session. The specific type of educational music therapy intervention did not affect results. Implications for practice, limitations, and suggestions for future research are provided.