Development of a Musical Identity Measure to Tailor Music Therapy for Mental Health

Music therapy (MT) may help address the global epidemics of depression and anxiety. Tailoring of MT interventions to participants' Musical identity (MI)-an individual's emotional and physical connection to music-may substantially increase the effectiveness of MT. Therefore, we developed and tested an exploratory scale for assessing MI and determined associations between components of MI and sociodemographic and mental health outcomes. To achieve this goal, we assessed a national sample of 1512 U.S. adults aged 30-70 years in July-August 2023. We measured depression using the validated Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and anxiety using the validated Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7). A new 12-item MI Inventory (MII) assessed MI. Principal components analysis (PCA) using Varimax rotation determined the factor structure of the MII. Cronbach's α assessed the internal consistency reliability of each resulting subscale. We examined sociodemographic and mental-health differences across MII components using χ2 analyses. PCA yielded a strong two-factor solution with MII subscales focused on musical experience and emotional connection to music. Higher scores on both subscales were associated with younger age (P < .001), greater educational attainment (P < .001), and being employed (P < .001). Anxiety was significantly associated with both subscales, while depression was significantly associated with the music experience subscale. Categorizing individuals based on MII profiles may be useful in tailoring MT modalities to optimize mental health outcomes. Younger individuals scoring higher on both subscales highlight the emerging potential for MT's relevance and effectiveness.