The Comparison of the Effect of Two Complementary Medicine Methods (Music Therapy and Massage Therapy) On Postoperative Acute Pain After Abdominal Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial Study

Despite advances in postoperative pain control, it is still a big challenge with high-prevalence for practitioners. Inadequate control of postoperative acute pain is common which can lead to serious complications for patient.
This study aimed to compare massage therapy and music therapy in the control of postoperative pain and amount of received opioid drug after abdominal surgery.
In this randomized 3-group trial, 102 patients in the surgical wards of 3 military hospitals, Ahvaz, Iran, were randomly allocated to music group, massage group, and usual-care group. Participants in the massage and music groups received 10-minutes sessions of slow-stroke back massage and without lyrics music, respectively, 1, 6, and 12 hours after surgery. The pain intensity was measured by numeric rating scale 10 minutes after each intervention session. Also, the mean of received opioid drug during 12 hours was measured in each group.
The results indicated a decreasing trend of pain intensity in all the groups. However, the trend of pain intensity had a significantly more decrease in the massage group compared to the both music group (P = 0.001) and usual-care group (P = 0.001). Pain intensity at the baseline had no significant difference between the massage group and the music group (Mean ± SD: 7.13 ± 1.2 vs. 6.97 ± 1.3, P = 0.6); whereas, pain intensity 12 hours after surgery had a significant difference between the massage group and the music group (Mean ± SD: 2.26 ± 1.03 vs. 3.30 ± 1.5, P = 0.002). Also, the mean of received opioid drug was significantly lower in the massage group than both the music and the usual-care groups (P = 0.013 and P = 0.001, respectively). Also, the mean of received opioid drug was significantly lower in the music group than the usual-care group (P = 0.047).
Massage therapy was more effective than music therapy in controlling postoperative acute pain after abdominal surgery. Hence, the use of non-drug methods (especially massage therapy) as safe, inexpensive, effective, and available methods are very helpful for controlling postoperative acute pain.