Tuning out anxiety: the role of music in cataract surgery

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Can music ease the nerves of patients undergoing surgery? In a recent study published in the Journal of Cataract & Refractive Surgery, researchers explored the effects of listening to music during cataract surgery.¹ Two of the study's authors, Paola Rivera Morales, MD, a hospital resident at Yale School of Medicine, and Vicente Diaz, MD, MBA, from the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, shared some of their key takeaways about the study’s findings with Ophthalmology Times, including how music helped reduce anxiety and improved the overall atmosphere in the operating room.

Did patients select their preferred music genre or how was it determined which music was played?

For the patients in the music group, we asked their preferred music.

What are some of the observed long-term benefits, such as faster recovery times or reduced pain, in patients who listened to music during surgery compared to those who did not?

This study was not designed to look at long-term benefits. The intraoperative benefits, as measured by questionnaires, were less anxiety and fear. Also, there were fewer hypertensive events.

How does the effectiveness of music in reducing patient anxiety during surgery compared to other non-pharmacological methods, such as guided meditation or aromatherapy?

Those would be excellent areas of future research. It would be logistically more difficult to do those things in an operating room setting.

Does playing music in the operating room affect the surgeon's focus or stress levels, and if so, how?

While this was not an endpoint of the study...anecdotally, music is appreciated by the doctors and other support staff. There was a noticeable difference in the mood of the room when we did the control cases without music. The support staff commented that the hardest part of the study was having to do the control group cases.

How was patient anxiety measured before, during, and after surgery?

Anxiety was measured using a validated six-question, Likert-style survey, adapted from the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. The survey consisted of two sections. The first section included a question assessing patients' baseline or preoperative anxiety levels, with response options ranging from "not at all" to "very much so." The second section consisted of an intraoperative questionnaire, where patients rated their feelings of being upset, frightened, nervous, jittery, or confused during the surgical procedure, using the same response scale.

What feedback did patients give about their experience with music during surgery?

Patients expressed that listening to their music of choice during the surgery helped them feel less anxious and calmer. They noted that music helped them relax and diverted their attention from both the surgical environment and the discussions among health care providers in the operating room. Patients from the music group were very pleased with their experience of having music of their choice during the surgery.

Did they find any differences among different demographic groups?

Differences among demographic groups were not assessed.

Reference

1. Rivera PA, Linderman WL, Miguez S, Chow J, DeBroff B, Diaz V. Music during cataract surgery: effect on anxiety. J Cataract Refract Surg. 2024;50(7):688-692. doi:10.1097/j.jcrs.0000000000001444