Effect of music in reducing patient anxiety during colposcopy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

BACKGROUND: Music therapy has been used greatly in various medical procedures to reduce associated anxiety and pain. OBJECTIVE: to evaluate the evidence from published randomized clinical trials (RCTs) about the effect of music intervention in reducing patient's anxiety during the colposcopy. SEARCH STRATEGY: Electronic databases included PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus and Web of Science were searched using the relevant MeSH terms. SELECTION CRITERIA: All RCTs assessing the effect of music therapy versus no music in reducing anxiety during colposcopy were considered. Eighty-five studies were identified of which five studies deemed eligible for this review. DATA EXTRACTION: The extracted outcomes were; anxiety, pain during and after the procedure, and satisfaction levels. They were pooled as mean difference in a fixed-effects model, using Review Manager 5.3 software for windows. MAIN RESULTS: We found no effect of music therapy in reducing the anxiety levels when compared with the control group (SMD= -0.11, 95% CI [-0.36, 0.14], p=0.4). No difference between music and control groups regarding pain during and after the procedure respectively (SMD= -0.20, 95% CI [-0.58, -0.18], p=0.31) and (SMD=-0.10, 95% CI [-0.30, -0.10], p=0.33). CONCLUSIONS: Music therapy had no positive effect in reducing anxiety, pain and satisfaction levels during colposcopy.