Live music in the intensive care unit – a beautiful experience

ABSTRACT

Background

The growing number of lightly or non-sedated patients who are critically ill means that more patients experience the noisy and stressful environment. Live music may create positive and meaningful moments.

Purpose

To explore non-sedated patients’ experiences of patient-tailored live music interventions in the intensive care unit.

Design

A qualitative study using a phenomenological-hermeneutic approach. Data were collected at two intensive care units from September 2019 to February 2020 exploring 18 live music interventions performed by music students from The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, Denmark.

Methods

Observations of live music interventions followed by patient interviews. All data together were analysed using Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation. The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) checklist was used.

Results

Five themes emerged: 1) A break from everyday life, 2) A room with beautiful sounds and emotions, 3) Too tired to participate, 4) Knowing the music makes it meaningful and 5) A calm and beautiful moment.

Conclusion

Patient-tailored live music to awake patients is both feasible and acceptable and perceived as a break from every-day life in the ICU.

Implications for practice

Supporting health and well-being by bringing a humanizing resource into the intensive care setting for patients and nurses to enjoy.

KEYWORDS:

• Intensive care unit
• music intervention
• non-sedation
• nursing
• patient experience
• phenomenology and hermeneutics

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the participating intensive care units at Aarhus University Hospital for their support in the study. Especially, we express our gratitude to CCRN Ulla Otte, for her fostering the idea of live music concerts in the ICU played by music students from The Royal Academy of Music and for CCRN Anne Rönningen Lund Andersen for collecting data and guiding the musicians. Furthermore, we would like to thank all the musical students who created meaningful musical moments in the ICU and, of course, a special thanks to the patients and relatives who participated in the study.

Author contributions

All authors have substantially contributed to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work. All authors have drafted or revised the paper critically for important intellectual content. All authors have given final approval of the version to be published. All authors agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2024.2322755

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Pia Dreyer

Pia Dreyer (RN, MScN, PhD) is a professor within clinical ICU nursing and home mechanical ventilation. She is employed both at Aarhus University, Department of Public Health, Section of Nursing and Health Care, the Department of Intensive care at Aarhus University Hospital. She has in-depth knowledge of the experiences of mechanically ventilated patients and is working to humanize the ICU environment together with her research group. Also, she is acknowledged within the scientific traditions of phenomenology and hermeneutics and has developed a Ricoeur-inspired interpretation method.

Linette Thorn

Linette Thorn (RN, CCRN, MScN,) has worked with ICU patients since the beginning of her nursing career. She has been preoccupied with understanding the experiences of ICU patients and working to humanize the ICU environment, particularly with nursing care and music interventions. In private music is also a major part of her life, as she is both a singer and plays the piano. At the moment she is a specialist nurse within intensive care nursing at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark.

Trine Højfeldt Lund

Trine Højfeldt Lund (RN, CCRN, head nurse) is a head nurse at Department of Intensive Care, Aarhus University Hospital, in Aarhus. She is leading nurses, nursing students and Critical Care Nursing Trainees. For several years she has ample experience in leading highly intensive care nursing practice and critical care nurses. Furthermore, she has great interest in research with the focus on clinical nursing practice.

Margrethe Langer Bro

Margrethe Langer Bro (Pianist, PhD, Associate Professor) is an Associate Professor at The Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg and at The Danish National Academy of Music Odense/Esbjerg, Denmark. She graduated as a solo pianist from The Royal Academy of Music in 1998 and holds a PhD degree from 2019. She has been working as a professional musician as well as a lecturer, supervisor and coach for music students, professional ensembles and health care professionals within the area of artistic citizenship since 2005. Her research interests include exploring patient‐centred music interventions in the healthcare environment.