The Effectiveness of Targeted Music Therapy Intervention and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Sleep Quality and Symptoms of Insomnia Disorder in seniors

Context and Objective: Due to the high prevalence of sleep disorder in seniors, this study focuses on the effect of objective music therapy or MAT and cognitive-behavioral therapy or CBT on overall sleep quality and subscale indexes of sleep quality in seniors. Methodology: The present study is an experimental one with random selection of the subjects. The sample study is taken from 5000 senior member’s if Shiraz’s Jahandedehgan day care center. This study holds 66 subjects containing the entry and exclusion criteria. Following 7.85 percent loss, 61 seniors suffering from primary insomnia disorder and mean age of 68.15 were placed into three groups, two experimental and one control group. The experimental group one takes part in musical and cognitive-behavioral group therapy and the experimental group two takes part in cognitive-behavioral group therapy while the last group received no intervention. All patients in this study were measured for the level of disorder and before and after the treatment using the PSQI scale of insomnia disorder. The collected data were measured by statistical software SPSS 21 and were analyzed by multivariate analysis of covariance or MANCOVA and ANCOVA. Findings: The mean of overall sleep quality before the intervention in experimental groups 1&2 and control were 13/31, 12/95, and 12/7 respectively and were changed into 13.31, 9.73, and 7.59 after the intervention in post-test and finally in the 3 months follow-ups the means become 7.22, 9.32, and 13.55. The mean difference in the overall sleep quality after the intervention and the subscale indexes were significant as The result showed musical therapy and cognitive behavioral caused a significant reduction on the patients with the symptoms of insomnia disorder (P<0.001). Conclusion: The present study shows that music therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy are more effective in developing overall sleep quality and decreasing the symptoms of insomnia disorder in seniors than the cognitive-behavioral therapy alone. Using this method by experts in the field of mental health and elderly care companions is strongly recommended. Trial registration: This study is registered in the IRCT Register, IRCT2015041521754N3. Ethical approval was gained in June 2015.