Long-term effects of short-term music therapy for prison inmates: six-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial.
Open accessAbstract
For most interventions to reduce criminal recidivism, long-term effects are uncertain. Music therapy has shown effects on possible precursors of recidivism, but direct evidence on long-term effects is lacking. In an exploratory parallel randomized controlled trial, 66 inmates in a Norwegian prison were allocated to music therapy or standard care and followed up over a median of 6 years, using state registry data. Median time to relapse was 5 years, with no differences between the interventions. The imprisonment of most participants was too short to provide a sufficient number of therapy sessions. Sufficiently powered studies are needed to examine the long-term effects of appropriate doses of therapy.
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Music has been used as a tool to increase psychological wellbeing in people experiencing situations of isolation or confinement.
“Furthermore, for many years (Van de Wall, 1924) music has been used as a tool to increase psychological wellbeing in people experiencing situations of isolation or confinement; this area of interest is currently paramount in psychological and music research (Edri and Bensimon, 2019; Hjørnevik and Waage, 2019; Gold et al., 2020).”
From Uses and Perceptions of Music in Times of COVID-19: A Spanish Population Survey (2021) · cites this paper as Gold et al., 2020
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Cited by
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Beaudry, G., Yu, R., Perry, A. E., & Fazel, S. (2021) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(21)00170-x · Cited by 196 · see citing works
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
- Authors
- Gold, C., Due, F. B., Thieu, E. K., Hjørnevik, K., Tuastad, L., & Assmus, J.
- Affiliations
- NORCE Research AS (NO)
- University of Bergen (NO)
- Bjørgvin Prison, Breistein, Norway
- Corresponding author
- Gold, Christian
- Venue
- International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-03-13
- Volume
- 65
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 543-557
- ISSN
- 0020-7497 (ISSN-L)
- 0306-624X
- 1552-6933
- PMC
- PMC7970310
- OpenAlex
- W3011082472
- Cited by
- 14
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3
- FWCI
- 2.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- NORA - Norwegian Open Research Archives (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Music Therapy and Health
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications
- Keywords
- music therapy, prisoners, recidivism, long-term effects, relapse, offender rehabilitation, prisoner treatment, dose-response relationship
- MeSH terms
- Recidivism, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Music Therapy, Prisoners, Prisons
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