Music Therapy With Cancer Affected Children and Their Families

University of Witten/Herdecke52 enrolled

Overview

Background: Pediatric oncology patients and their families are in an existentially threatening situation for which music therapy has proven as a cross-linguistic field of action: the creative act of making music offers the possibility of strengthening individual competences and makes socio-psycho-biological conflicts tangible in a very direct way. Although music therapy is an established component of multimodal care and the inclusion of significant others in the therapy setting is recommended, there has been little clinical research on music therapy interaction processes in the family system. The researchers have designed a randomized controlled pilot trial (INMUT) that specifically addresses family interaction in a multi-person setting. Methods: The examiners investigate the efficacy of music therapy interventions involving the parent-child dyad (INMUT-KB, n=16) compared to music therapy interventions involving only the child (MUT-K, n=16) and a waiting group without intervention (WG, n=10). Research questions: 1) Does the parent-child interaction improves in mutual attunement, nonverbal communication, and emotional parental response? 2) Are there effects on quality of life, psychosocial and psychosomatic impairments, and system-related level of functioning? Evaluation tools: Primary goals will be assessed by the music therapy-based Assessment of parent-child interaction (APCI) pre and post. The secondary objectives will be assessed by self-reports in form of the psychometric questionnaires KINDL, Experience in Social Systems Questionnaire (EXIS), Burden Assessment Scale (BAS) and Symptom Checklist-K-9 (SCL-9K) pre, post and follow up. Discussion: The investigators hope for an improvement of the primary and secondary endpoints through participation in music therapy as a basis for a needs-oriented accompaniment of families.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Enrollment

Interventions

Interaction-focused Music Therapy with Children and Significant Others (INMUT-KB) (exp. group)BEHAVIORAL

Interaction-focused music therapy with children with cancer and their significant others, delivered by trained music therapists.

Music Therapy with Children (MUT-K) (exp. group)BEHAVIORAL

Interaction-focused music therapy with children with cancer without the involvement of significant others, delivered by trained music therapists.

Interaction-focused Music Therapy with Children and Significant Others (WG-KB) (control group)BEHAVIORAL

Study participants randomized to this group receive the intervention INMUT 10 weeks after the experimental groups.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 5 YearsMax age: 13 Years

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria, Children: * cancer diagnosis * inpatient (e.g. GKH) * no cognitive and auditory dysfunction Exclusion Criteria, Children: * Serious comorbidity with impairment of brain-organic functions * BMI\<14 * serious physical comorbidity that does not allow specific assessment of psychosomatic constructs with certainty * withdrawal of informed consent Inclusion Criteria, Important Reference Persons: \- e.g. father, mother, siblings Exclusion Criteria, Important Reference Persons: \- withdrawal of consent

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Assessment of Parent-Child Interaction (APCI)

The APCI captures child-reference interaction using mutual attunement, nonverbal communication, and emotional parental response. The diagnostic music therapy intervention sessions are conducted and evaluated by external, blinded, APCI-certified raters.

Time frame: Baseline, Change in 10th hour of intervention

Secondary Outcomes

KINDL-Children/YouthVersion, Modul Oncology

The KINDL uses 40 items to assess the psychological well-being, social relationships, physical functioning, and daily activities during the daily activities within the last week.