Effect of Music Intervention on Pain and Anxiety During Urodynamic Testing: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Urodynamic testing is used to evaluate urinary tract function and often causes patients to experience pain, anxiety, and embarrassment. Music intervention has been proposed as a strategy to alleviate these discomforts. This research was conducted to investigate the effects of music intervention on pain and anxiety levels in women during urodynamic testing compared to the standard protocol.

During December 2021 to October 2022, 50 patients attending the Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery clinic at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand, that required urodynamic tests were randomized into the music intervention group and the control group (non-music). All participants were given questionnaires including demographic characteristics, pain score (Visual Analog Scale (VAS)), Thai-version State-Trait Anxiety Inventory Form (STAI) X-q by Spielberger, the embarrassment level and satisfaction score.

The median pain level with IQR (interquartile range) demonstrated no statistically significant differences between the two groups (2.50 (4.55) in the music group vs. 0.15 (2.18) in the non-music group, p = 0.064). There were no statistically significant differences in the mean total STAI score (41.07 ± 9.16 in the music group vs. 43.08 ± 7.96 in the non-music group, p = 0.415) and the median VAS of embarrassment score (4.05 (7.32) in the music group vs. 5.00 (6.20) in the non-music group, p = 0.646). There were no statistically significant differences in the satisfaction of both groups.

There is no difference in the pain and anxiety in patients undergoing multichannel urodynamic testing with or without music intervention.