The effect of a mobile application-based music intervention on pain levels and analgesic consumption following surgery: a randomized controlled trial.

Study Summary

80 patients undergoing orthopaedic trauma surgery were randomized to receive a mobile application-based music intervention or routine postoperative care without music. The intervention group listened to standardized, wordless Turkish music tonalities for 30 minutes three times during the first postoperative day: Rast in the morning, Nihavend in the afternoon, and Neva in the evening. The outcomes of interest were postoperative pain measured using the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) and analgesic consumption. Pain was assessed immediately before and one hour after each music session, and analgesic use was recorded at the end of the day. Overall, the results revealed that pain decreased significantly over time in both groups, but post-intervention pain scores were lower in the control group at all three post-intervention assessments after Bonferroni correction. Analgesic consumption did not significantly differ between groups. These findings suggest that this standardized mobile application-based music intervention did not provide a clear postoperative analgesic benefit beyond usual care.