Effect of Music Therapy on Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting among Patients with Gastrointestinal Cancers

Nausea and vomiting are the most common side-effects of chemotherapy. Today, complementary and alternative medicine, such as music therapy, is used beside standard cancer treatments to control these side-effects. This study aimed to assess the effect of music therapy on chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in patients with gastrointestinal cancers.
A single-blind randomized clinical trial study was done on 60 gastrointestinal cancer patients. Patients were randomly divided in two groups; control and music therapy. Patients in music therapy group were required to listen to quiet music for 45 minutes when receiving nausea-inducing chemotherapy drug (for gastric and esophagus cancer in 4th day and for colorectal cancer in 3rd day) in addition to the routine care. Control group just received routine care to control nausea and vomiting. Nausea and vomiting were assessed by Rhodes questionnaire before and 24 hours after intervention. Data were analyzed with SPSS (Version 24 software using T-test and the Chi-square.
Comparing to control group, nausea score was significantly reduced in music therapy group (p=0.01) while the rate of vomiting did not show any significant difference between two groups (p=0.42) (CI=%95).
Music therapy as a complementary and alternative medicine improves acute phase of chemotherapy-induced nausea in cancer patients, thus music therapy is recommended beside standard treatments to reduce nausea in gastrointestinal cancers patients.