Structural Equation Modeling for Evaluating the Effects of Music Therapy in Cancer Chemotherapy Trea

Music City Center 

Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) offers several advantages over regression, such as analyzing multiple relationships, incorporating latent variables, assessing model fit, handling measurement error, and flexibility. SEM is widely used in clinical and epidemiology studies. Music therapy is used to improve cancer patients' well-being by reducing negative emotions, aiding stress management, and enhancing emotional expression. This study investigated music intervention during chemotherapy infusion using SEM. 750 cancer patients receiving outpatient chemotherapy participated in an open-label, multisite, permuted block randomized trial. Patients were assigned to the intervention (listening to a single genre for up to 60 minutes) or a control group (no music). Self-reported pain, positive and negative mood, and distress were modeled as latent variables. Adjusted for covariates, music significantly improved positive mood and reduced negative mood but had no significant effect on pain or distress. Pain, negative mood, and distress were correlated, while none correlated with positive mood. These findings highlight the psychological benefits of music therapy during chemotherapy infusion.

Structural Equation Modeling

music therapy

chemotherapy 

Section on Statistics in Epidemiology