اثربخشی موسیقی درمانی گروهی بر کاهش استرس ادراک شده در دوران قرنطینه ی کووید-19

From December 2019 to January 12, 2021, people in 223 countries are affected by Covid-19 as a global epidemic. 1935028 people lost their lives and 89416559 people were infected. The pandemic COVID-19 and and subsequent home quarantine has increased stress for many people and using an effective, low cost, low complication method is essential to reducing stress. Stress is the pattern of specific and nonspecific responses that an individual gives to stimulus events that disturb his or her relaxation and impair the ability to tolerate or to deal with. It is believed that stress is one of the most important factors that affect human health. High levels of stress are associated with many physical and emotional problems such as cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, anxiety disorders, depression, burnout and addiction. Music interventions can be regarded as purposeful musical exercises or methods in which music listening, music making, or singing is central. In both literature and practice there is a distinction between music interventions offered by a music therapist and music interventions offered by other healthcare professionals or without any support. First, music interventions can be defined as purposeful music activities if they concern listening to prerecorded music offered by medical or healthcare professionals, if the intervention is self-administered by the patient (‘music as medicine’), or if it concerns music making or singing without the involvement of a music therapist or a therapeutic context. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of group music therapy on stress reduction during Qovid-19 quarantine. On the other hand, listening to music has been associated with a wide range of positive outcomes in the areas of health and well-being . The most extensive study among the studies that conducted on the effects of music is the effect of music on relaxation and stress reduction The research method was quasi experimental, pretest and posttest with control group. The statistical population was the all of clients at Artiman Counseling Center in Mashhad in 1399. Among the clients who referred to the center with stress problems in the first 6 months of the year, 30 people were selected by available sampling method and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. First, ethical considerations, including informed consent, confidentiality, etc., were considered. Prior to the intervention, a pretest was performed by the Perceived Stress Scale Questionnaire (Cohen, 1988) for both groups. The experimental group engaged in group intervention for 8 weeks and 3 sessions per week for 1.5 hours in each session with receptive music therapy. During this period, the control group did not receive any treatment and it was decided that after the completion of the research, treatment sessions will be held for this group. Then, posttest was performed for both groups in the same way and the difference between pretest and posttest scores of each group were statistically examined by SPSS-23 software. The results showed that there was a significant difference between stress scores in the experimental and control groups (F = 31.103 and P-value <0.01). Therefore, the research hypothesis on the effect of music therapy on stress reduction was confirmed and the amount of this effect was equal to 0.535. The present study provides high level of evidence that music interventions can be effective in reducing stress and justifies the use of music interventions to reduce stress. Due to its low cost, lack of side effects, and the calming and modifying effects of music interventions, its use to prevent and treat stress-related problems is very significant. The relationship between the frequency/duration of the music intervention and the effects on stress reduction is unclear. Future research should examine this topic, because apart from the musical characteristics, such as the music style and music tempo, these general characteristics of the music intervention may also moderate the effects on stress reduction. It seems that the influence of the music selection method on the effects of the music intervention is interpreted differently. In new trials, we strongly recommend reporting clearly if the researcher/therapist did choose the music of the intervention, or if the participants had to choose one of the researchers’ or therapists’ pre-selected music playlists, or if the participants brought their own music. Finally, it is recommended to compare the effects of music (therapy) interventions on stress-related outcomes with pharmacological treatment, but also with other experiential interventions, such as yoga or mindfulness.