Music for Pain in Primary Dysmenorrhea

Primary Dysmenorrhea (PD) is defined as pain in the lower abdomen, that occurs always during menses, in the absence of pelvic pathology, and lasts about 24-72 hours. It initiates during the first 24 months after menarche. Other symptoms like, emotional lability, anxiety, nausea, headache, and others may accompany the pain. It is considered the most common condition of reproductive age women, and is considered one of the most important causes for school or work absence in this population.

Music has been proposed as a complementary therapy for the management of pain, and a large body of clinical evidence supports its use on clinical context. Additionally, functional imaging research has found that music activates areas related to pain modulation and perception like the periaqueductal gray matter. Moreover music seems to modify brain activity during pain perception. Music has been shown to be effective in relieving pain secondary to surgery, in cancer related pain, and other types of pain, but it has not been studied for primary dysmenorrhea.

This randomized clinical trial was designed with the following objectives

General Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of music listening, compared to a control group that rested in silence, in the painful experience secondary to primary dysmenorrhea in women of 18 years or older from the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá DC., Colombia.

Specific Objectives:

1. Description of demographic data, clinical, gynecological, and obstetric background from the study population.
2. Description of pain management, secondary to PD, used by the study population.
3. Evaluate the usual pain secondary to PD, as reported by the study participants through a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS)
4. To explore if the acute perception of pain secondary to PD, as reported by participants using a VAS, before the intervention, is different between the study groups.
5. To evaluate if the acute perception of pain secondary to PD, as reported by participants using a VAS, after the intervention, differs between those that listened to music and those that rested in silence.
6. To explore if a difference in the reduction of pain, as reported by participants using a VAS, from the moment before to the moment after the intervention exists between those in the music group compared to those in the silence group.
7. To evaluate if the acute perception of pain secondary to PD, as reported by participants using a VAS, 3-6 hours after the intervention, differs between those that listened to music and those that rested in silence.
8. To evaluate if the anxiety secondary to PD, as reported by participants using a validated Spanish short version of the Zung scale, differs between groups, before and after the intervention.
9. To evaluate if a difference in the reported requirements of analgesic drugs is different between the study groups after and 3-6 hours after the intervention.
10. To evaluate if a difference in heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure is identified between groups, using a previously calibrated digital sphyngmomanometer.

The investigators hypothesized that listening to an instrumental song, unknown to the patient, will have a significant effect on pain relief. Additionally, investigators hypothesized that music listening will have a clinical effect big enough to also impact analgesic requirements and anxiety scores .

Primary endpoint was pain reduction from the moment before to after the intervention. Pain reduction is the better way to evaluate analgesia efficacy and was the proper approach for these protocol's main objective, which was efficacy of music on pain relief secondary to primary dysmenorrhea.

For achieving these aims and answering research questions, a randomized clinical trial was designed. As patients can't be blinded from listening or not to music, a single blinded approach was decided. Furthermore, methodology for recruitment was designed to blind patients from allocation until the day of the intervention and a speech was used to avoid patients to identify the primary endpoint. Additionally, patients were explained that two interventions were used, but it was not specified that silence group was the control group, to assure proper blinding and avoid further bias of results. Silence was decided as a control intervention as comparison with drug placebo may not be adequate due to differences in the types of intervention.

To isolate the music effects the investigators decided on using a completely new and unknown song. The song was planned and composed exclusively for the research, so all patients allocated to the music group listened to the exact same musical piece.