Effects of therapeutic music listening on depression and sleep quality in people with chronic schizophrenia: Pilot randomized controlled trial

Objective: This pilot study aimed to determine the effects of experimenter-selected recorded music listening on depression and sleep quality in people with chronic schizophrenia. Methods: The single-masked, randomized controlled trial was conducted with 56 outpatients in a community mental health center in western Turkey, between January 2023 and July 2023. The music listening intervention was carried out for eight weeks, two sessions per week and 60 min per session. Results: The post-test and follow-up test depression and sleep quality scores of chronic schizophrenia patients in the music listening group were lower than the control group and the difference was statistically significant. In addition, there was a significant decrease in the depression levels of the patients in the music listening group from pre-test to post-test and from post-test to follow-up test. There was a significant improvement in sleep quality in the post-test compared to the pre-test, but there was no significant difference between the follow-up test and post-test scores. Conclusion: Listening to pre-recorded Turkish rast makam music is a feasible, economical, safe, and non-invasive intervention, able to improve both depression and sleep quality in outpatients with chronic schizophrenia. Therefore, psychiatric nurses should use therapeutic music listening to reduce depression and increase sleep quality in patients.