Trial reportThe western journal of emergency medicine2025
Randomized Trial of Self-Selected Music Intervention on Pain and Anxiety in Emergency Department Patients with Musculoskeletal Back Pain.
Trial report in The western journal of emergency medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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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
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- A scoping review of music-based pain treatment mechanism research.Pain reports · 2026Review
- Review
- Development of Mind-Body Interventions for the Emergency Department.Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians open · 2026Article
- Methodological Considerations on the Randomized Trial of Self-Selected Music for Musculoskeletal Back Pain in the Emergency Department.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
introductionAcute musculoskeletal back pain is a frequent cause of emergency department (ED) visits, often with suboptimal relief from standard treatments. Recent evidence suggests listening to music may modulate pain and anxiety. In this pilot randomized controlled trial, we evaluated the impact of a brief session of patient-selected music vs noise cancellation on pain severity and anxiety in patients presenting to the ED with back pain.
methodsPatients with acute back pain completed a baseline survey to assess demographics, medication information, and psychosocial factors. The ED patients were randomized to listen to self-selected music or to noise cancellation (control). Patients rated their pain and anxiety (0-10) before and immediately after the intervention. We used analyses of covariance to examine whether post-intervention pain and anxiety differed between the groups, while controlling for baseline trait pain catastrophizing. A mediation analysis was conducted to explore the role of post-intervention anxiety as a mediator of the group difference in post-intervention pain.
resultsForty patients were enrolled with an average age of 47.2 years (range 21 - 81). and 27 patients (68%) were female. At baseline, patients in the music group reported higher pain catastrophizing compared to patients in the noise cancellation group. There were no other group differences in baseline characteristics. Post-intervention, patients in the music group reported significantly lower anxiety (3.0 ± 0.7 vs 5.5 ± 0.7, P = 0.016) and pain severity (6.1 ± 0.4 vs.7.5 ± 0.4, P = 0.037) compared to the noise cancellation group. A mediation analysis showed that post-intervention anxiety partially mediated the association between intervention group (music vs noise cancellation) and post-intervention pain.
conclusionA brief session of self-selected music resulted in lower pain and anxiety scores than noise cancellation among patients with musculoskeletal back pain in the ED. Patients who listened to music reported lower post-intervention anxiety, which partially contributed to lower post-intervention pain severity.
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