A recent pilot study published in “PLOS ONE” showed significant decrease in pain intensity and duration following music intervention during the morning bed bath in the mechanically ventilated patients.

Pain is one of the significant issues in the mechanically ventilated patients as they are unable to express the problem verbally. Gwenaëlle Jacq and colleagues conducted the present study to evaluate the effect of music sessions on pain reduction.

From March 2013 to October 2015 sixty mechanically ventilated patients were enrolled in the study and equally allocated into two groups. Thirty received the music intervention at the time of morning bed bath and other 30 received no music therapy. The assessment on the Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS) was done during and at the end of the bath, and at 30 minutes, 1 and 2 hours post-bath. Afterwards, the estimation of the segments of bath times spent with a BPS score ≥5 and with the maximum BPS score was carried out. 

The median BPS score of both groups was found to be 3 at the baseline with no pain. 88% of participants perceived pain after the beginning of the bed bath. The music intervention group showed lower maximum BPS value during the bath. In the music group, the segments of bath times spent with a BPS score ≥5 and with the highest BPS score were found to be lower as compared to the controls. At 120 minutes, the BPS values returned to baseline in music as well as control group.