Music intervention on physiological and psychological responses of patients with cancer: A protocol for meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Cancer is a life-threatening condition and also one of the biggest challenges facing human health and the medical community. This meta-analysis was to investigate the effects of music intervention on physiological and psychological responses of patients with cancer. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The following electronic databases will be searched from inception to December 2020: PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Database, Chinese Science and the Wanfang Database. We only included music intervention vs placebo in cancer patients and pooled results were summarized by STATA 12.0 software. Two investigators independently selected the studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the data, and assessed the quality of the selected studies. The existence of statistical heterogeneity would be evaluated by Chi(2) test and its extension by the I(2) test (I(2) > 50% indicates high heterogeneity among studies). Publication bias was ruled out by funnel plot and statistically assessed by Begg test (P > .05 as no publication bias). RESULTS: The study results will be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals and key findings will be presented at international scientific meetings. CONCLUSION: Our study aims to systematically assess the effects of music intervention in cancer patients, which will be provide clinical guidance for cancer patients.