Date of Award
8-2016
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
College/School
College of the Arts
Department/Program
John J. Cali School of Music
Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair
Karen Goodman
Committee Member
Leah Oswanski
Committee Member
Andrew Rossetti
Abstract
One reported strategy towards effective interdisciplinary collaboration for optimal patient care is through understanding the purpose and roles of the other disciplines on the health care team. In comparison to disciplines such as nursing, music therapy is a more recent discipline that has been added to hospice interdisciplinary teams. The purpose of this study was to discover how hospice clinicians perceive the role of music therapy in end of life care. A multiple-select choice survey was conducted asking 15 hospice clinicians their feedback on the following music therapy topics: reasons for referrals, benefits of music therapy, music therapy interventions, and how music therapy knowledge was acquired. The most common way participants learned about music therapy was by directly working with a music therapist, with 13 responses. Frequent reasons for referrals that resulted in at least 12 responses were to address isolation and to manage anxiety/agitation. One hundred percent of the participants selected that music therapy helps hospice patients by decreasing anxiety/agitation and improving mood. All 15 participants selected that a music therapy intervention can involve a music therapist and patient singing patient preferred music together. Despite few responses of answer choices that did not fully convey the role of music therapy (ex: referred music therapy to provide entertainment), the majority of participants in this study demonstrated a clear understanding of music therapy’s purpose in hospice. Learning other clinicians’ perceptions can be an important step towards improving effective interdisciplinary collaboration. Implications of the results from the survey are further discussed.
File Format
Recommended Citation
Antoine, Crystal, "Perceptions of Music Therapy Among Hospice Health Care Clinicians : Implications for Effective Interdisciplinary Collaboration" (2016). Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects. 345.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/etd/345