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Depression is a common illness that can severely affect people's quality of life (Malhi 2018) and it is expected to be the leading cause of burden of disease worldwide by 2030 (World Health Organization 2011). Despite various treatments, people can experience recurrent and difficult-to-treat episodes (Malhi 2018). Music therapy is one form of therapy used in depression and other mental and cognitive disorders. Previous reviews support its use, including in Parkinson's disease (Machado Sotomayor 2021), dementia (Gómez-Romero 2017), anxiety (Lu 2021), schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, post-natal depression and social anxiety (Witusik 2019). Music therapy is not simply asking patients to listen to music (coined ‘music medicine’), but rather involves the cultivation of a therapeutic relationship between participant and therapist (Dileo 2006), as in other forms of psychological therapy. This is done using components of music (e.g. melody) with the goal of promoting physical, psychological and social well-being (Dileo 2006).

This commentary looks at the Cochrane Review (Aalbers 2017) in this issue's Cochrane Corner, which synthesised evidence on music therapy for depression.

The Cochrane Review

Summary

The review cited the World Federation of Music Therapy's definition of the intervention (Box 1) and split the four types into two groups: receptive (listening to music) and active forms (‘making’ music). The review's inclusion criteria identified ‘well-defined’ music therapy using criteria that appeared to follow from the definition (Box 1) and background literature, but they were not explicit in their formulation.

BOX 1

The World Federation of Music Therapy defines music therapy as ‘the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families, or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual health and wellbeing’ (World Federation of Music Therapy 2023).

There are four main types of music therapy/method (Bruscia 2013):

The Cochrane Review outlined the following criteria to identify ‘well-defined’ music therapy (Aalbers 2017). Music therapy had to:

What is music therapy?

  • receptive (listening)

  • composition

  • improvisation

  • re-creative (or performance).

  • include sessions with a structured therapeutic framework

  • involve a musical interaction between therapist and participant or between therapist and a group of participants

  • aim to improve health

  • have a main therapeutic change agent that could be described...

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