Resources & references

This study examined whether music therapy is was beneficial among adults with sickle cell disease and chronic pain. Interviews revealed that participants learned new self-management skills and that music therapy improved their ability to cope with pain.

Click here to watch a video about this study.

Read an article exploring the feasibilty of incorporating mindful self-compassion into music therapy sessions for patients living with chronic pain. Results highlighted the need for future research to better interpret the results, but found a general increase in levels of pain acceptance following the treatment sessions.

In this video, a music therapist presents his study about music therapy interventions for adults with sickle cell disease (SCD).  The full study is also available: click here to read it.

This article explores how music therapy can serve as a self-care management resource for improving self-efficacy and mediating the relationship between vulnerability factors and health outcomes for patients with sickle cell disease. Accordingly, it is important for appropriate patient reported outcomes to be used within practice and research to capture these important domains and improve our understanding of how music therapy can help individuals with chronic pain achieve meaningful outcomes.

This article provides recommendations for music therapy practice and research among individuals with chronic pain using sickle cell disease as an exemplar condition. The research on music therapy for chronic pain management has shown that music therapy is particularly helpful in improving people's pain-related self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is well recognized to play an essential role in effective management of chronic pain.