The study of sleep problems in adults is quite an essential topic for improving the quality of public health. Insomnia consists of deprivation of the duration and quality of sleep, which affects the psychological and physical condition of people. As a way to solve this issue, more and more research suggests using music therapy, specifically lullabies. It is believed that playing music before going to bed will help improve its quality and the general well-being of patients. Therefore, the future study aims to prove the positive impact and effectiveness of the use of lullabies for patients with insomnia by conducting research on experimental and control groups. To obtain the most useful information for scientific work, a study of the literature will be conducted, which is based on evidence-based data. In addition, the main limitation may be the unreliability of the information provided by the participants of the experiment.
Effects of Lullaby Music on Quality of Sleep in Adults with Insomnia
Insomnia is one of the most severe problems, especially in adulthood. This is due to the fact that this deviation affects not only the quality of sleep of individuals but also their physical and psychological state. At the same time, there is a substantial number of studies that consider the effect of lullabies on improving the condition of patients with sleep deprivation problems. Thus, this work aims to examine the effect of lullaby music on improving the quality of sleep in adult patients with insomnia. In particular, attention will be paid to the consideration of a particular music machine that is used for children, which plays instrumental lullaby music.
First, a literary study of scientific articles supported the hypothesis. Thus, it is emphasized that insomnia is a sleep disorder than can reduce the quality of life for those affected by this medical condition (Jespersen et al., 2015). The article by Fan Feng et al. describes the results of a study done with 314 participants in 6 studies, testing to see if music intervention helped improve sleep quality and reduce insomnia in those receiving the intervention. Participants in 5 studies listened to music for 25-60 minutes at bedtime for 3-35 days (Feng et al., 2018). The results suggested that music may improve sleep quality in those with insomnia. One study focused on the effects of music on other aspects of sleep, such as sleep latency and the number of times the participant(s) woke up during the night; this study was only three days long and was inconclusive. The study suggests that music intervention is safe and easy to administer.
Another valuable study by Chen et al. used systematic review and meta-analyses of the effect of listening to different types of music on sleep quality in older adults. Sedative music was much better at relaxing the participants than rhythmic music, which has a much faster tempo and was played at a louder volume. Chen et al. (2021) tested music therapy using randomized trials with a total sample size of 288 participants, all aged 60 or older. The listening duration ranged from 30 minutes-1 hour, played over 2 days to 3 months (Chen et al., 2021). Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh sleep quality index. Therefore, researchers concluded that music therapy can significantly improve sleep quality in older adults (Trahan et al., 2018). The hypothesis of this scientific work is to predict that playing lullaby music at bedtime will help adults improve their quality of sleep.
Method
The choice of research participants directly depends on the topic of scientific work. Hence, this work is going to use as possible participants patients of the clinic who have experienced problems with sleep quality over the past five years. Sixteen people will be selected to conduct the experimental work, which will be divided into two groups, control and experimental. Participants will be recruited depending on their age category, that is, between the ages of 55 and 60, as this is the most common age in patients with insomnia (“Insomnia,” n.d.). Demographic characteristics, in this case, do not have a significant value. The formal recruitment procedure will necessarily include the signing of a participation agreement and a non-disclosure agreement on personal information.
Materials
The dependent variable of this research work is the quality of patients’ sleep. The independent (grouping) variable will be lullaby music, and the levels of it will be measured by playing 30-60 minutes of lullaby at bedtime for the experimental group and playing no music for the control group. In addition, an essential step for the research is the definition of design, which affects not only the results of the work but also the entire process of its implementation. The experiment, quasi-experiment, and correlation will be taken as a basis since they are most suitable for studying the proposed topic (Wang et al., 2017). The measurement will be carried out by comparing the information obtained using correlation, which implies data analysis, without the ability of researchers to manipulate them. Quasi-experimental will provide an opportunity to compare the relationship between the proposed implementation and the results of its application.
Procedure
As already mentioned, the experimental and control groups will be studied in the work. The first one will have the opportunity to listen to a lullaby before going to bed for thirty minutes. The control group will follow their usual routines for the same time and not listen to any music before going to bed. Both groups will keep a diary of records and undergo a unique survey to determine whether there were improvements in the condition of the experimental compared with the control group.
At the beginning of the study, several special agreements will be concluded between the participants and the researchers. First of all, they will concern with informed consent and ensuring the safety of personal data. This is a critically important step since compliance with ethical standards in conducting scientific work ensures the achievement of positive results and satisfaction of all parties involved in this process. The security of personal information will be ensured by limiting the number of researchers who will only have authorized access to the data.
Results and Discussion
Therefore, this work suggests getting positive results and confirming the hypothesis that playing lullaby music at bedtime will help adults improve their quality of sleep. Thus, a literary review showed that “music therapy was extremely successful in improving the sleep quality of older adults” (Chen et al., 2021). Moreover, the proposed intervention can improve the physical and psychological state; that is, it increases the overall level of health of patients (Jespersen et al., 2015; Trahan et al., 2018). One of the main limitations of this study is the threat of unreliability of the information that the participants will provide. There is a possibility that the information about the success or failure of the intervention may be unreliable. Future research should be aimed at a deeper and more detailed study of music on sleep problems not only in older adults but also in a younger population.
References
Chen, C. T., Tung, H. H., Fang, C. J., Wang, J. L., Ko, N. Y., Chang, Y. J., & Chen, Y. C. (2021). Effect of music therapy on improving sleep quality in older adults: A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 69(7), 1925-1932. doi:10.1111/jgs.1714
Feng, F., Zhang, Y., Hou, J., Cai, J., Jiang, Q., Li, X., Zhao, Q., & Li, B. A. (2018). Can music improve sleep quality in adults with primary insomnia? A systematic review and network meta-analysis. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 77, 189-196. doi: 10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2017.10.011
Insomnia. (n.d.). Cleveland Clinic.
Jespersen, K.V., Koenig, J., Jennum, P., & Vuust, P. (2015). Music for insomnia in adults. Cochrane Database Systematic Review, 2015(8), 1-57. doi: 10.1002/14651858
Trahan, T., Durrant, S. J., Müllensiefen, D., & Williamson, V. J. (2018). The music that helps people sleep and the reasons they believe it works: A mixed methods analysis of online survey reports. PloS One, 13(11), 1-19. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206531
Wang, Q., Alfalou, A., & Brosseau, C. (2017). New perspectives in face correlation research: a tutorial. Advances in Optics and Photonics, 9(1), 1-78. doi: 10.1364/AOP.9.000001