The effect of music on the rate of anxiety among hospitalized children

At least about 30 percentage of children hospitalize in hospital in their childhood. Hospitalization of children cause anxiety, due to separation from their parents, fear of new environment, disabilities and continuation of life. This study was done to determine the effect of music on the rate of anxiety among 9-12 years old hospitalized children. This semi experimental study was done on sixty 9-12 years old children who are confined to bed in Taleghani hospital in Gorgan north of Iran during 2002-3. 60 of children were divided to 2equal groups of intervention and control randomly. The tools of gathering data including information questionnaire, patients demographic, state – trait anxiety inventory for children Spillberger (STAIC), face anxiety children examined scale Piyeri (FACES) information was compared before and after the intervention the collect. For intervention group, 2 music therapies listening of music section, for the 2 continuous days and each section lasted for 20 minutes. The collected data before and after intervention were analyzed by using Kolmogrov-Smironov, c2, independent-sample T test, Wilcoxon signed Ranks, Bartlet and Mann Whitney test. There was not any difference between the average of state anxiety and amount of face anxiety in both group before execution of music therapy but there was a significant difference for the intervention group after the music therapy (p<0.05). Also the decrease in the rate of anxiety in intervention group can related to the executing of music therapy. Music therapy reduced the rate of anxiety among the 9-12 years hospitalized children.