Effect of music on procedure time and sedation during colonoscopy: A meta-analysis

AIM: To integrate results from different studies in examining the effectiveness of music in reducing the procedure time and the amount of sedation used during colonoscopic procedure. METHODS: An electronic search in various databases was performed to identify related articles. Study quality was evaluated by the Jadad's scale. The random effect model was used to pool the effect from individual trials and the Cohen Q-statistic was used to determine heterogeneity. Egger's regression was used to detect publication bias. RESULTS: Eight studies with 722 subjects were included in this meta-analysis. The combined mean difference for the time taken for the colonoscopy procedure between the music and control groups was -2.84 with 95% CI (-5.61 to -0.08), implying a short time for the music group. The combined mean difference for the use of sedation was -0.46 with 95%CI (-0.91 to -0.01), showing a significant reduction in the use of sedation in the music group. Heterogeneity was observed in both analyses but no publication bias was detected. CONCLUSION: Listening to music is effective in reducing procedure time and amount of sedation during colonoscopy and should be promoted. (C) 2008 The WIG Press. All rights reserved.