Trial reportBMC psychiatry2008
The effect of improvisational music therapy on the treatment of depression: protocol for a randomised controlled trial.
Trial report in BMC psychiatry, 2008. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 82 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review for Human EEG Brain Signals Based Emotion Classification, Feature Extraction, Brain Condition, Group Comparison.Journal of medical systems · 2018Pooled it
- Music therapy for depression.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2017Pooled it
- Music therapy in Huntington's disease: a protocol for a multi-center randomized controlled trial.BMC psychology · 2016Trial
- Bouncing back after trauma: music therapy, gender, and mental health in conflict-ridden settings.Discover mental health · 2025Article
- Effect of Group Impromptu Music Therapy on Emotional Regulation and Depressive Symptoms of College Students: A Randomized Controlled Study.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Mechanistic research approaches in music therapy for pain: Humanizing and contextualized options for clinician-researchers.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Evaluation of the Efficacy of Artificial Neural Network-Based Music Therapy for Depression.Computational intelligence and neuroscience · 2022Article
- Basic emotions expressed in music: factor analyses on intensity ratings by non-musical professional Chinese university students.Psychology research and behavior management · 2018Article
- Psychiatry and music.Indian journal of psychiatry · 2014Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMusic therapy is frequently offered to individuals suffering from depression. Despite the lack of research into the effects of music therapy on this population, anecdotal evidence suggests that the results are rather promising. The aim of this study is to examine whether improvisational, psychodynamically orientated music therapy in an individual setting helps reduce symptoms of depression and improve other health-related outcomes. In particular, attention will be given to mediator agents, such as musical expression and interaction in the sessions, as well as to the explanatory potential of EEG recordings in investigating emotion related music perception of individuals with depression.
methods85 adults (18-50 years of age) with depression (ICD-10: F 32 or F33) will be randomly assigned to an experimental or a control condition. All participants will receive standard care, but the experimental group will be offered biweekly sessions of improvisational music therapy over a period of 3 months. A blind assessor will measure outcomes before testing, after 3 months, and after 6 months. DISCUSSION: This study aims to fill a gap in knowledge as to whether active (improvisational) music therapy applied to people with depression improves their condition. For the first time in this context, the mediating processes, such as changes in musical expression and interaction during the course of therapy, will be objectively investigated, and it is expected that the results will provide new insights into these processes. Furthermore, the findings are expected to reveal whether music related emotional experiences, as measured by EEG, can be utilized in assessing a depressive client's improvement in the therapy. The size and the comprehensiveness of the study are sufficient for generalizing its findings to clinical practice as well as to further music therapy research.
trial registrationISRCTN84185937.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.