The effect of listening to music on intensive care patients' vital signs

This pretest-posttest experimental study was conducted between February and July 2018 in thecardiovascular surgery department of a training and research hospitalin order to investigate the effect of listening to music on the vitalssigns of intensive care patients.The study population consisted of patients undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The sample consisted of 105 patients who met the inclusion criteria. The patients were divided into three groups: intubated/without spontaneous respiration, intubated/with spontaneous respiration and extubated groups. Once the patients were stabilized in the intensive care unit, they listened to pieces of music they had chosen in the preoperative periodusing a headset for 30 minutes. The patients' vital signs and scores before and after listening to music were recorded. Data were collected using a personal information form and a vital signs record form. Data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, one-way ANOVA test, the Kruskal Wallis test and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test. The decreases in diastolic blood pressure, respiratory rate and saturation levels after listening to music were found to be statistically significant in the intubated/without spontaneous respirationgroup (p<0.05). The decreases in pulse rate and systolic blood pressure values after listening to music were also found to be statistically significant in the intubated/with spontaneous respiration group (p<0.05). Finally, in the extubated group, the post-intervention decrease in the high pulse rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and respiratory rate and the post-intervention increase in the low level of saturation were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). The findings of this study suggest that listening to music has a positive effect on the vitalsigns of patients treated in intensive care unitsfollowing coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and this intervention could be applied in CABG patients.