Effect Of Alpha-Wave Containing Music On Stress Level Of Hospital Staff And Students

Abstract

Background: Stress has several consequences on a person's health and quality of life. Almost everyone suffers from stress, from the healthcare workers pressured from their careers to the young student agonizing over multiple aspects of life. Therefore, an effective stress-reducing method is in high demand. Alpha-wave containing music has produced some positive effects on stress release. It is also affordable, easy to do, and convenient, which makes the intervention desirable. This project aims to investigate the impact of alpha music on the stress levels of hospital staff and university students. Method: Healthcare workers from the An Binh Hospital and students from universities in Ho Chi Minh City were recruited and divided randomly into Testing and Control groups. The Testing subjects had their stress-related questionnaire responses analyzed before and after two weeks of listening to alpha music. The questionnaire set consists of PSS and K-JCQ for hospital staff, as well as, CSS-S and SAM for university students. Additionally, the EEG, ECG, and EOG signals of 7 students were recorded after listening to alpha music for a week. Then, alpha relative power, alpha asymmetry, heart rate variability, and eye blinking rate were extracted and used to perform statistical calculations. Results: Almost all of the results implied positive assessments for alpha music in stress reduction. Some significant changes were a decrease in CSS-S score after the intervention (p = 0.005) in the Online student study, a decrease in eye blinking rate (p = 0.043), and an increase in average alpha relative power between Rest and Alpha music sessions (p = 0.0034). Conclusion: The preliminary results were encouraging; however, we could not assume the effect of alpha music. Additionally, several aspects could improve in the future, such as the data collection process, more relevant metrics, and more potent analysis.