This study explores how personalised music therapy can support children and their parents during repeated medical procedures, such as blood tests or injections. Many children find these procedures painful or frightening, and repeated experiences can lead to high anxiety and difficulty coping. Parents often feel distressed as well, which can affect how well they are able to support their child. Because children and parents regulate each other emotionally, helping both members of the pair is important for reducing distress.
This study aims to explore how personalised music therapy-based procedural support (MTPS) influences the relational and emotional processes that help children and their parents cope, regulate, and build resilience during repeated medical procedures.
Paediatric patient (ages 5-12) undergoing recurring needle procedures (venipuncture, intravenous (IV) cannulation, subcutaneous injections, intramuscular (IM) injections, Port-a-Cath, lumbar punctures, and bone marrow transplant, aspiration or biopsy)
Parents or caregiver of a paediatric patient (ages 5-12) undergoing recurring needle procedures.
Willing to participate in music therapy-based sessions.
Able to complete brief questionnaires and/or take part in an interview.
Patients currently under heavy sedation or anaesthetic medication that impairs consciousness during data collection.
Medically unstable or emergency care patients where participation may interfere with clinical care.
Non-English or non-Norwegian speakers where language barriers may pose difficulties in participants understanding study information, and issues in interpretation and analysis of collected data.
Patients with severe cognitive or developmental impairment making meaningful engagement with the intervention difficult.