Effects of music therapy on occupational stress and burn-out risk of operating room staff

Abstract

The operating theatre staff is exposed to various constraints such as excessive working hours, severe medical conditions and dreadful consequences in case of malpractice. These working conditions may lead to high and chronic levels of stress, which can interfere with medical staff well-being and patients quality of care. The aim of this study is toassess the impact of music therapy on stress levels and burnout risk on the operating room staff. This is a preexperimental study including the operating rooms staff of urology and maxillofacial surgery in the academic hospital of Sahloul Sousse (Tunisia) over a period of six weeks. The study consisted of three phases. The first was an initial assessment of stress level with a predefined survey. The second included three music therapy sessions per day over one month. The third was an immediate stress level reassessment following the intervention. Stress levels were evaluated using the Perceived Stress Scale version PSS-10 and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. The overall response rate was 73.9%.The average age of the study population was 37.8 ± 7.7 years with a female predominance (64.7%). After the music therapy program, Perceived Stress Scale average score decreased from 22 ± 8.9 to 16 ± 7.9 (p = 0.006). Concerning the burnout, only the average score of emotional exhaustion decreased significantly from 27 ± 10.8 to 19.2 ± 9.5 (p = 0.004). Music therapy is an innovative approach that seems to reduce operating theatre staff stress. It must be considered as a non pharmacological, simple, economic and non invasive preventive tool.

Burnout prevention pilot intervention for healthcare workers during COVID-19

“…The present study's brief burnout intervention was received extremely well and the majority of participants reported that the session was helpful, even participants who did not report emotionally challenging work, caring for passed patients, or the presence of burnout, which supports implementation of burnout interventions for HCWs prior to experiencing significant burnout symptoms. These findings align with previous research that found music therapy 10 and chaplain interaction 11 for HCWs to benefit wellbeing and discourage burnout. This study also agrees with the findings of Schoenborn et al, 13 who found a memorial service for patient death to be beneficial for resident physicians.…”

“…Further, Kacem et al 10 found music therapy to be a simple, noninvasive strategy that significantly reduced burnout for HCWs. Given the heavy workload and lack of downtime of HCWs, burnout prevention strategies that include music may be especially feasible.…”

The effect of organizational musical therapy on reducing the stress level of health care professionals in a public hospital

“…Out of 685 articles, only 13 addressed the use of musical therapy in organizations. Furthermore, the few empiric studies that are similar to this one, on an experimental basis and which checked the efficacy of musical therapy to reduce the level of stress in health care professionals, were carried out in other geographical contexts, such as Tunisia, Northern Africa (Kacem et al, 2020), or Florida, in the United States of America (Wenzel, 2018).…”

The Limits of Resilience and the Need for Resistance: Articulating the Role of Music Therapy With Young People Within a Shifting Trauma Paradigm

“…Significant attention has been paid to the transmission of trauma, vicarious traumatic stress, burnout, and compassion fatigue among therapists and community workers ( Clements-Cortes, 2013 ; Fairchild, 2018 ; Downs, 2019 ). The literature even highlights how the creative arts therapies can be a resource for health workers in the face of burnout ( Kacem et al, 2020 ; Reed et al, 2020 ). Again, however, I point to the ways in which these can be understood as individualized rather than collective struggles.…”