ABSTRACT: Aim. This paper is a report of a clinical trial of the effects of music therapy on anxiety of female breast cancer patients following radical mastectomy. Background. There is insufficient evidence on the effects of music therapy on state anxiety of breast cancer patients following radical mastectomy. Methods. A Hall's Core, Care, and Cure Model-based clinical trial was conducted in 120 female breast cancer patients from March to November 2009. A randomized controlled design was utilized. The patients were randomly allocated to the experimental group (n = 60) received music therapy in addition to routine nursing care, and the control group (n = 60) only received routine nursing care. A standardized questionnaire and the State Anxiety Inventory were applied. The primary endpoint was the state anxiety score measured at pretest (on the day before radical mastectomy) and at three post-tests (on the day before patients were discharged from hospital, the second and third time of admission to hospital for chemotherapy respectively). Results. The pretest score revealed that the majority of the patients had a moderate level (77•5%) and 15% had severe level of state anxiety. The repeated-measure ancova model analysis indicated that the mean state anxiety score was significantly lower in the experimental group than those in the control group at each of the three post-test measurements. The mean difference between the experimental and control group together with 95% confidence intervals were -4•57 (-6•33, -2•82), -8•91 (-10•75, -7•08) and -9•69 (-11•52, -7•85) at the 1st post-test, 2nd post-test and 3rd post-test respectively. Conclusion. Music therapy is found to have positive effects on decreasing state anxiety score.

J Adv Nurs. 2011 Oct 6. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2648.2011.05824.x. Li XM, Zhou KN, Yan H, Wang DL, Zhang YP. Xiao-Mei Li PhD RN Associate Professor, Dean Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China Kai-Na Zhou MSc RN Assistant Researcher Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China Hong Yan PhD Professor Department of Public Health, College of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Shaanxi, China Duo-Lao Wang PhD Professor Department of Medical Statistics, Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK Yin-Ping Zhang PhD RN Associate Professor Department of Nursing, College of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China.