The Effect of Music on the Anxiety of Mothers of Infants Admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Mothers with premature infants often experience a lot of anxiety, and since music has positive effects on anxiety, the present study was conducted to investigate the effect of music on the anxiety of mothers of infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.

This clinical trial was performed on 120 mothers with infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of Rouhani Hospital in Babol and Bu-Ali Sina Hospital in Sari. Samples were randomly divided into two groups of experimental and control each consisting of 60 patients. In the experimental group, relaxing music was played daily through mobile phones and headphones for each mother individually for 10 minutes in 10 sessions. No intervention was performed for the control group. Both groups of mothers completed the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) before the start of the study and on the tenth day and were compared.

The mean age of mothers was 27.8±5.71 years and the mean age of infants was 3.92±3.88 days. In this study, anxiety was relatively severe or severe in 60% of mothers before the intervention. Levels of overt anxiety and covert anxiety in mothers of music groups before the intervention (59.48±13.66), (55.62±12.26) showed a significant decrease compared to after the intervention (31.27±6.57), (33.08±8.66), respectively (p<0.0001).

The results of the study showed that music is effective in reducing the anxiety of mothers with infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.