Music as a Therapeutic Nursing Intervention and Cardiac Surgical Inpatients' Experience: A Quality Improvement Project

Enduring cardiac surgery can result in physical pain and feelings of anxiety during the recovery period. Although pharmaceutical interventions exist to help alleviate these symptoms, complimentary therapies are seldom encountered in hospital settings. Listening to calming music has been shown to improve the patient experience and can be a safe adjunct to standard pharmaceutical management of pain and anxiety. The aim of this project was to implement music as a nursing intervention for open-heart patients and to evaluate both nurse attitudes and trends in use and patient experiences of pain, anxiety, and satisfaction. A descriptive, quality improvement project following the Plan-Do-Study-Act format for healthcare improvement was conducted on a cardiac telemetry unit at a suburban hospital in Arizona. Thirty percent of staff nurses provided feedback. The majority of participating nurses had a bachelor’s degree (58%) and less than 10 years of nursing experience (79%). Of the participating nurses, 79% recommended the intervention, with two fully providing the intervention to the patient when requested. Patient surveys were completed by 13% of potential patient participants, though only two surveys were suitable for analysis. Patients (n=2) reported improvements in satisfaction levels and would recommend the intervention for others. One reported an improvement in pain and the other patient reported an improvement in anxiety. Overall, music was viewed favorably by nurses and patients as a complementary therapy, but because of the short study period and limited nurse and patient feedback, more quality improvement projects are needed to determine its direct effects on patients. Engaging and recruiting frontline staff in the design of the project and enlisting more financial support from the organization would be advised