The effects of musical stimulation on the level of consciousness among patients with head trauma hospitalized in intensive care units: A randomized control trial.

Background: Improvement in the level of consciousness (LOC) is considered as an indicator of recovery among patients with head trauma (HT). musical stimulation is a simple noninvasive intervention with potential positive effects on LOC. This study evaluated the effects of musical stimulation on LOC among patients with HT hospitalized in intensive care unit.

Methods: This clinical trial was conducted in 2018-2019. Fifty-four patients with HT were purposively and consecutively recruited from two trauma intensive care units in Qazvin, Iran, and randomly allocated to a control (n = 27) and an intervention (n = 27) group. Participants in the intervention group received fifteen-minute musical stimulation once daily for seven consecutive days using an MP3 player and a headphone for their counterparts, the headphones were silent for 15 min without receiving any musical stimulation once daily for seven consecutive days. A demographic questionnaire, the Glasgow Coma Scale, and the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale were used for data collection. LOC was daily assessed before and after each musical stimulation session. The SPSS program (v. 23.0) was used for data analysis at a significance level of less than 0.05.

Findings: There were significant between-group differences respecting the posttest mean score of LOC in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh days of the study intervention (P < 0.05)., the posttest mean score of LOC in the intervention group significantly increased in the intervention group (P < 0.0001), while it did not significantly change in the control group (P > 0.05).

Conclusion: musical stimulation is effective in significantly improving LOC among hospitalized patients with HT. Therefore, it can be used as a non-expensive noninvasive intervention to improve treatment outcomes among these patients.