Mental health affects millions of people worldwide. In the United States alone, about 1 in 5 adults experiences mental illness each year. For those who need inpatient care, hospital stays are often brief—sometimes just a week. During this short time, doctors and therapists try to stabilize patients and prepare them for discharge.
Current treatments often include medication and talk therapy. But many patients and clinicians are looking for additional, non-drug options. Music therapy is one such option. It uses music to help people express emotions, reduce stress, and improve mood. It’s already used in hospitals, but we don’t know the best way to deliver it in a short time frame.
The frustration is this: We know music therapy can help, but we don’t know if more sessions are better. Should a patient get one session or five? This study tries to answer that. It matters because hospitals need to use their limited time and resources wisely. If more sessions help, they might schedule more. If not, they can focus on other treatments.
The Old Way vs. The New Way
For years, music therapy research focused on long-term programs. Many studies looked at sessions over several weeks or months. This makes sense for outpatient care, but it doesn’t help inpatient settings where time is short.
The old thinking was: More therapy is always better. But in a short hospital stay, is that true? Maybe one session is enough. Or maybe five sessions are needed to see a real change.
This study challenges that old thinking. It directly compares high-frequency and low-frequency music therapy in a short inpatient setting. The result? More sessions helped lower stress, but not other symptoms. This suggests that the benefits of music therapy might be specific to stress reduction, at least in the short term.
Think of stress like a traffic jam in your brain. Your thoughts are stuck, and you can’t move forward. Music therapy might act like a traffic controller. It helps organize your thoughts and emotions, allowing the jam to clear.
In this study, therapists used MIDI-assisted group music therapy. This means they used electronic instruments connected to computers to create music. The group setting allows patients to connect with others, which can reduce feelings of isolation. The music itself can distract from negative thoughts and promote relaxation.
The high-frequency group had five sessions over five consecutive days. The low-frequency group had just one session. Both groups were in the hospital for about a week. The idea was to see if more “music time” leads to more “stress relief.”
The study took place in an adult psychiatric inpatient unit in Bogotá, Colombia. Researchers enrolled 91 patients and randomly assigned them to either the high-frequency or low-frequency group. After the intervention, 74 patients completed the study. The patients were assessed for stress, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction before and after the intervention week.
The most important finding was about stress. Patients in the high-frequency group had a greater reduction in stress scores compared to the low-frequency group. The difference was statistically significant, meaning it’s unlikely due to chance.
But here’s the catch: The benefit was only seen for stress. There were no significant differences between the groups for anxiety, depression, or life satisfaction. This means that while more sessions helped lower stress, they didn’t improve other aspects of mental health in this short time frame.
This doesn’t mean music therapy isn’t helpful. It just means its effects might be specific to stress reduction in the short term.
This study adds to a growing body of evidence on music therapy in psychiatric care. It suggests that for patients in short-term hospital stays, focusing on stress reduction with more frequent sessions might be a good strategy. However, the limited benefits for other symptoms highlight the need for a combined approach. Music therapy should be used alongside other treatments, not as a standalone solution.
If you or a loved one is in psychiatric inpatient care, music therapy might be worth asking about. It could help reduce stress during a difficult time. However, it’s not a cure-all. It’s important to talk to your healthcare team about all available options.
This study is still in the research phase. It’s not yet a standard part of care everywhere. But it shows promise for using music to support mental health in hospitals.
This study had some important limitations. It was small, with only 74 patients completing the study. It was also done in one hospital in Colombia, so the results might not apply to other settings. The study only looked at a one-week intervention, so we don’t know if the benefits last longer. Finally, the study used a specific type of music therapy (MIDI-assisted group sessions), which might not be the same as other music therapy approaches.
Next, researchers need to conduct larger studies in different hospitals and countries. They should also look at longer-term effects. If music therapy continues to show benefits for stress, it might become a more common part of psychiatric inpatient care. For now, this study gives us a clear message: In short hospital stays, more music therapy sessions may help lower stress, but they don’t replace other treatments.
