Journal article

Original sound compositions reduce anxiety in emergency department patients: A randomised controlled trial

TJ Weiland, GA Jelinek, KE Macarow, P Samartzis, DM Brown, EM Grierson, C Winter

Medical Journal of Australia | Published : 2011

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether emergency department (ED) patients' self-rated levels of anxiety are affected by exposure to purpose-designed music or sound compositions with and without the audio frequencies of embedded binaural beat. Design, setting and participants: Randomised controlled trial in an ED between 1 February 2010 and 14 April 2010 among a convenience sample of adult patients who were rated as category 3 on the Australasian Triage Scale. Interventions: All interventions involved listening to soundtracks of 20 minutes' duration that were purpose-designed by composers and sound-recording artists. Participants were allocated at random to one of five groups: headphones and iPod on..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project's funding scheme (project number LP0882346), project title, "Designing sound for health and wellbeing". David Brown received support in the form of research assistance from St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. We acknowledge the work of the late Associate Professor Andrew Dent who was instrumental in the development of this study.