The number of as-needed medications for agitation was quantified during a three month period during which patients had the option of listening to music in cases of agitation. This was compared to the number of medications needed for agitation during another 3 month period during which music was not available. The medications used were quantified using pharmacy records. Patients and nurses were surveyed to determine how effective and feasible they thought the music intervention was. The study was conducted at the SUNY Upstate University Hospital inpatient psychiatric unit, which is a 24-bed unit. 172 patients were included in the project.~Before starting to offer music, a basic training meeting was held with nursing staff to understand the purpose of the project. Patients participating had the option of selecting a preferred musical genre and they listened to music using wireless headphones. The playlists used were genre playlists automatically generated by Spotify music application. If patients did not like the song that was generated, they had an option to skip the song using their bluetooth headphone controls. Headphones were collected after 30 minutes of listening unless they were return prior to completion of the listening session.
In this quality improvement project, our objectives were to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of using music as an adjunct to or replacement of pharmacological interventions for patient agitation on an inpatient psychiatric unit. We hypothesized that music availability would help to reduce agitation and reduce the amount of as-needed medications used for cases of patient agitation.