Music Therapy and Tinnitus Treatment: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Tinnitus is the perception of sound without an external source. Various treatments and therapeutic strategies for tinnitus have been used. More recently, this includes music therapy (MT), which aims to mask tinnitus using specific musical elements such as rhythm, melody, harmony, and tempo.

To identify evidence in the literature regarding the use of MT for the treatment of tinnitus, the techniques employed, and the outcomes achieved.

In the present systematic review, we searched for articles in the PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, MEDLINE, LILACS, and SciELO databases, up until January 2024. The search included articles published in English, Portuguese, and German. Articles on the use of MT for the treatment of tinnitus were included. Duplicates, literature reviews, case reports, letters, and editorials were excluded. The descriptors used were " music therapy ", " acoustic stimulation " and " tinnitus ". Random effects models using the restricted maximum likelihood method were used to estimate the proportion of patients with favorable outcomes. The seardescriptions resulted in the initial selection of 552 articles containing one or more descriptors in the article title. We selected 211 for abstract review, and 48 were selected for full-text review. Finally, 23 articles published between 2005 and 2022 were selected for meta-analysis.

As an effective method for the treatment of tinnitus, MT stimulates the peripheral and central auditory pathways as well as central para-auditory pathways (related to attention, concentration, memory, and emotions).