Exploring the readiness of health care professionals regarding use of music therapy as procedural support in pediatric tertiary health care setting, Karachi

Music has been explored as the soothing medium across centuries and cultures. The literature has suggested several beneficial effects of music on human mind. It has immense healing power; it can be used as anxiolytic medium and generate sleep through its relaxant effect thus creating more comfortable and peaceful environment .(27). \u27Music\u27 Therapy has been used in many developed countries around the globe as an alternative to sedative drugs during medical procedure in pediatric population. Use of \u27Music Therapy\u27, as a replacement to sedative drugs, can reduce the cost of treatment. Moreover, by eliminating sedative drugs, its use will possibility decrease; the chances of side effects, length of hospital stay, number of staff and anxiety of under-treatment children. All these factors make \u27Music Therapy\u27 extremely relevant to low income countries like Pakistan where there is a need to reduce cost of treatment. Introduction of \u27Music Therapy\u27 will benefit the healthcare delivery, health system, patients, their families and communities. Research Question 1 . What are the perceptions and readiness of healthcare professionals and academicians regarding usage of Music Therapy as procedural support in pediatric tertiary Health Care settings of Karachi? 2. What are the perceived challenges and recommendations of health care professionals and academicians regarding the use of Music Therapy as procedural support in pediatric tertiary health care setting, Karachi? Methodology Descriptive exploratory design was used to explore the perception of health care personals (pediatric nurses, pediatric physicians, pediatric nursing management & children hospital management) working in private tertiary healthcare setting along with nursing curriculum experts regarding introduction of Music Therapy in clinical setting and in nursing curriculum. For data collection, after in-depth literature review, semi structured questionnaire was developed. Data was collected through Key Informant Interviews (KI Is), In-depth Interviews (IDIs) and Focus Group Discussion (FGDs). After data collection, data was transcribed and manually analyied starting from open coding, which later on merge into categories and then themes were developed. The time duration of the study was August 2019 till September 2019. Results After analysis of data, 4 main themes comes out of the research, the first theme is benefit of Music Therapy for pediatric health care setting which includes; decreasing risk of side effects from sedatives , providing positive environment to patient , and financial relief to both family and hospital , second theme emerged as, perceived challenges for integrating music therapy in to health care system that are; different socio cultural background , knowledge gap and acceptability , the third theme was, a way forward to improve the integration of Music Therapy in to health care system which includes; alternative to Music keeping socio cultural background in view , involving parents in the Music session , and music of the choice of patients and the last theme is, role of academia to build healthcare professionals\u27 capacity in this area where the Music Therapy certification course and role of adding clinical hours in nursing curriculum was considered to be a step towards the goal of achieving non pharmacological measures in to our system. Conclusion In conclusion, overall the readiness for Music Therapy among the health care professionals and management personals were positive. They share their perceptions along with the challenges and a way forward to overcome those challenges. Despite having positive perception, few responses also showed ambiguity related to its application in ICU settings or during invasive procedures. This showed that participants were eager to learn more about the therapy and verbalize their relief of saving a child from side effects/adverse effects of sedatives if this therapy formally been introduce into the healthcare system Recommendation The results showed that initially there is need of knowledge dissemination among healthcare provider as well as to general public. In order to build capacity it is recommended to train nursing students for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). Also there are number of recommendations for future studies that is; perception of patients (parents) regarding use of Music Therapy as alternate to sedatives, to explore its effectiveness in Pediatric health care setting and also the cost analysis is recommended upon success in identifying its effectiveness in pediatric health care settin