Implementation of music in colorectal perioperative standard care—barriers and facilitators among patients and healthcare professionals

AIM: Perioperative anxiety and pain are still prevalent among patients undergoing surgery. Inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer patients are known to have higher anxiety rates than the general population. Perioperatively applied music intervention has been proven to be effective in reducing perioperative anxiety and pain, resulting in a decrease of intra‐operative sedative use, postoperative opioid requirement and neurohormonal stress response. IMPROVE evaluates the adherence to music intervention in colorectal perioperative standard care during systematic implementation. METHOD: The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) was used for implementation in three steps. This study addresses the first step in which barriers and facilitators for implementing perioperative music were identified by surveying patients who underwent colorectal surgery and healthcare professionals involved in perioperative care. Also, perioperative anxiety scores were assessed and data on perioperative pain was collected from the patients’ medical records. RESULTS: Fifty patients and 69 professionals (response rate 68.3%) were surveyed. For patients, all domains of the CFIR were facilitating implementation. The median reported preoperative and postoperative anxiety scores were 4.5 (1.0–7.0) and 3.0 (1.0–5.75) respectively. The median postoperative pain score on the first postoperative day was 2.8 (2.0–3.7). Also, for professionals most domains were facilitating, except for some factors related to work climate and culture among nurses. CONCLUSIONS: In this study it was identified that facilitating factors for implementing music in standard perioperative care were more prominent in both patients and healthcare professionals and therefore successful implementation is probable. Also, this study provides a guideline for assessing facilitators and barriers in other settings.