“A quiet still voice that just touches”: music’s relevance for adults living with life-threatening cancer diagnoses.
Abstract
Purpose Music has historically aided health and loss-adaptation, however, cancer patients' experience of music for self-care is not well understood. This study examines adult cancer patients' views about music's role before and after diagnosis. Methods Constructivist approach, with grounded theory informed design using convenience, snowball and theoretical sampling. Patients from Australian metropolitan cancer and hospice settings completed demographic questionnaires and participated in semi-structured interviews. Qualitative inter-rater reliability was applied. Results Fifty-two patients reported comparable time spent experiencing music pre-post diagnosis. Music may remain incidental; however, many patients adapt music usage to ameliorate cancer's aversive effects. Patients often draw from their musical lives and explore unfamiliar music to: remain connected with pre-illness identities; strengthen capacity for enduring treatment, ongoing survival (even when knowing "you're going to die"), or facing death; reframe upended worlds; and live enriched lives. Patients can ascribe human or physical properties to music when describing its transformative effects. Familiar lyrics maybe reinterpreted, and patients' intensified emotional reactions to music can reflect their threatened mortality. Sometimes music becomes inaccessible, elusive, and/or intensifies distress and is avoided. Families', friends' and professionals' recognition of patients' altered musical lives and music-based s…
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The influence of music on the most vulnerable age group to the disease had not, to date, been examined.
“its influence on the most vulnerable age group to the disease had not, to date, been examined.”
From Uses and Perceptions of Music in Times of COVID-19: A Spanish Population Survey (2021) · cites this paper as O’Callaghan et al., 2014
The paper’s Purpose states that it examines adult cancer patients’ views about music, and its Results report findings from 52 patients. The section “Personal Music Use in Cancer Across the Life-Span” says adults’ experience of music was not well understood—not that it had never been examined—and describes an earlier study of Swedish patients. The paper does not identify a particular age group as the most vulnerable to cancer. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Uses and Perceptions of Music in Times of COVID-19: A Spanish Population Survey
Cabedo-Mas, A., Arriaga-Sanz, C., & Moliner-Miravet, L. (2021) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.606180 · Cited by 135 · see citing works
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O’Callaghan, C., Dwyer, J., & Schofield, P. (2024) · Qualitative Research in Psychology · doi:10.1080/14780887.2024.2347580 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- O’Callaghan, C. C., McDermott, F., Michael, N., Daveson, B. A., Hudson, P. L., & Zalcberg, J. R.
- Affiliations
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Monash University (AU)
- Cabrini Hospital (AU)
- King's College London (GB)
- Queen's University Belfast (GB)
- Corresponding author
- O’Callaghan, Clare C.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Supportive Care in Cancer
- Published
- 2013-11-28
- Volume
- 22
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1037-1047
- ISSN
- 0941-4355 (ISSN-L)
- 1433-7339
- OpenAlex
- W2140868616
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 3.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Supportive Care in Cancer (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Minerva Access (University of Melbourne) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (Queen's University Belfast) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Music Therapy and Health
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer survivorship and care
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Palliative and Oncologic Care
- Keywords
- music, cancer patients, self-care, life-threatening illness, music listening, death acceptance, illness identity, emotional response to music, music intervention, palliative care, hospice care, health worker support
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Psychological, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Music, Music Therapy, Neoplasms, Surveys and Questionnaires, Self Care, Hospice Care
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