A boost to concentration or a distracting noise? A systematic review of surgeon and anaesthetist perspectives of the benefit of intra-operative music.

Background: The surgical team should be as harmonious and focussed as possible in the operating theatre. Whilst there is evidence of benefit for the use of music in the perioperative period for patient, little exists to inform of impact on those doing the surgery or anaesthesia. This review focuses on the perspectives of surgeons and anaesthetists, their views and opinions on the effect and impact of music during surgery.

Methods: A systematic review was conducted using narrative synthesis. The PRISMA guidelines were followed with the use of PICO and PRISMA guided search strategy. PubMed, CINAHL and Medline were searched but filtered to only published English language papers.

Results: Of 329 papers identified 42 duplicates were removed. 287 were screened; of which 276 were excluded and 11 sought for retrieval. Of these, 8 were excluded for wrong population or study design, leaving 3 for analysis. Narrative synthesis revealed three themes to guide discussion: (1) Views of surgeons and anaesthetists and the effect on music; (2) effect of music on other staff members; and (3) differences in music choices and balance of power.

Conclusion: Music has an overall beneficial effect on surgeons and anaesthetists, especially with regards improved concentration. As an intervention, it has global generalisability and requires little resource. Investigation across different surgical specialities and use of flexible control models in terms of choosing music is a natural subsequent research question.