Music therapy, women and substance use problems: A systematic literature review and thematic synthesis

This study creates an overview of the literature on music therapy with women in substance use treatment, discusses the different types of literature and what they address, and thematically synthesizes that literature to explore which aspects characterize music therapy with women in substance use treatment. The applied methods are systematic literature review and thematic synthesis. The systematic literature review identifies eight different texts where various methods of music therapy have been applied. The thematic synthesis resulted in fifteen analytic themes that characterize music therapy with women in substance use treatment. The results are discussed in the light of women specific treatment and the women's perspective. The results from the thematic synthesis demonstrate that music therapy supports women specific treatment, that women specific treatment can optimize music therapy if integrated and that music therapy is a suitable approach to substance use treatment. This study shows that there is a general need for more research and literature in the area of music therapy with women in substance use treatment, and especially qualitative research with a focus on the user perspective to investigate how music therapy is experienced and how it does or does not work