Impact of group music therapy on the depression mood of college students

doi:10.4236/health.2011.33028

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Vol.3, No.3, 151-155 (2011) Health

doi:10.4236/health.2011.33028

Impact of group music therapy on the depression mood

of college students*

Jinliang Wang1, Haizhen Wang2, Dajun Zhang1

1Center for Mental Health Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China;

*Corresponding Author: zhangdj@swu.edu.cn;

2School of Public Administration, Chongqing Youth Vocational and Technical College, Chongqing, China.

Received 25 December 2010; revised 31 January 2011; accepted 28 February 2011.

ABSTRACT

The goal of this study was to examine the ef-

fects of group music therapy on depression and

mental health among college students. 80 stu-

dents participated in this study, with 40 as-

signed to control group and other 40 assigned

to experimental group. The results showed that

after the group music therapy, for the experi-

mental group, the depression scores have re-

duced significantly and the mental health scores

have improved, while for the control group, no

significant difference was obtained on the de-

pression and mental health scores. This indi-

cates that group music therapy can effectively

reduce depression and improve ment al health.

Keywords: Group Music Therapy; College Students;

Depression; Ment al Health

1. INTRODUCTION

Mental health problems, which are featured by the

disturbance and disorder of mental and psychological

activities, refer to the undesirable psychological factors

or psychological states that affect the normal behavior

and activity efficacy of individuals. As a special group

that undertakes the high expectation from the society and

parents, college students are obviously under more psy-

chological pressure than other peer groups. A review on

previous investigations about college students’ mental

problems showed that college students suffer from dif-

ferent types of psychological problems, especially de-

pression, anxiety, somatization, and interpersonal sensi-

tivity [1-3]. Depression ranks the top among these men-

tal problems that disturb college students in the order of

seriousness. Therefore, this study chose depression as

the target of intervention of group music therapy. In the

mean time, the impact of group music therapy on de-

pression and overall mental health of college students

was also explored.

According to previous research on college students’

depressive symptoms, depression may be closely relate

to various life events and individuals’ ways of coping

with these psychological stimuli [4]. For instance, social

competition, academic pressure, interpersonal commu-

nication pressure, qu arrelling with others, serious d efeat,

being not smooth or being disappointed in love, and dis-

ordered close family relationship can contribute to the

depressive symptoms of college students. Among these

reasons, negative coping method, health adaptation fac-

tor, active coping methods, punishment and study pres-

sure have most impact on depressive symptoms [5]. Re-

search also showed that individual variables are impor-

tant to depression, such as high sensitivity to loss and

being overlooked, low self-esteem, difficulty in admit-

ting and mobilizing the emotions, intrapsychic conflict

caused by dependence, frequent bouts of tension, and

long exposure to depression-induction environment. An

effective intervention can be designed then the above

factors are fully considered.

Since 1980s, researchers have conducted intervention s

on reducing depressive symptoms of college students,

which involved combination of hypnosis and relaxation

training, reading, physical exercises like Chinese shad-

owboxing and body-building exercises, offering courses

in mental hygiene and personality psychology, and lay-

ing emphasis on social and family support. Music ther-

apy, as an impor tant means of interv ention on d epression,

has been shown to be effective in reducing depression

mood [6-9].

An inspection on literature sho w ed th at so me effective

means of intervention into depressive symptoms of col-

lege students are app lied from the perspectives of cogni-

tion, will, behavior, and society, which involve change of

cognition, tempering of will, enhancement of behavior,

*This study was supported by the fund of Key Project ‘Strategies on

Cultivating College and Middle School Students’ Personality Traits’ at

Key Humanity Social Science Research Institute in Chongqing.

J. L. Wang et al. / Health 3 (2011) 151-155

152

and adaptation to society. Zhang points out that current

mental health education inclines to “highlighting behav-

ior training while overlooking the internalization of ex-

periences” during specific practice. Therefore, the im-

portant role of internalization of emotion and experi-

ences shall be emphasized properly [10]. According to

the analysis on the literature, depressive symptoms are a

type of sad emotion experienced by the individual, with

subjective negative emotional experience as its core

element. Therefore, the key to reducing depressive symp-

toms is to transfer the negative emotional experience

into positive emotional one. In the above studies of ef-

fective methods to affect depressive symptoms of col-

lege students, we find little of study on effective inter-

vention from the perspective of emotional experience.

Hence, this study tries to use music therapy as the inter-

vention to decrease the depressive symptoms of college

students. It is an exploratory study on the mental health

education of college students. In the current study, two

hypotheses were proposed.

Hypothesis 1. Music therapy may effectively affect

the depressive symptoms of college students.

Hypothesis 2. Music therapy may promote the overall

mental health of college students by alleviating the de-

pressive symptoms.

2. METHOD

2.1. Participants

Tests of depressive symptoms and overall mental

health have been conducted for th e participants selection.

According to the study of Wu [11] and Ji, et al [12], the

college students with the score of SDS self-rating de-

pression scale, greater than 40 and score of depression

factors of SCL-90, the symptom checklist, greater than

2.18 are selected as the participants. In this study, 80

students (Control group = 40, Experimental group = 40)

were selected as the participants (Mean age = 19.35; SD

= 1.68).

2.2. Experimental Design

The balance group pre-test and post-test experimental

design is used, with the music therapy as the independ-

ent variable and the depression score and mental health

score as the dependent variable (See Table 1).

2.3. Measurement

The self-rating depressive scale (SDS) The Chinese

version of the SDS is a self-report measure of depression

consisting of 20 items, with a four-point scale ranging

from a little of the time (1) to most of the time (4). Of

the 20 items, 10 are worded positively and 10 are worded

Tabl e 1. Experimental design of music therapy intervention on

depression.

Group Pre-Test Intervention Post-Test

Depression

score

Depression

score

Experimental

group Mental

health score

Music therapy Mental

health score

Depression

score

Depression

score

Control groupMental

health score

No therapy Mental

health score

negatively. The former 10 items are reversed items [13].

The validity and the reliability of the SDS have been

reported (for review, see Zung, 1986) [14].

The symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90) The Chinese

version of the SCL-90 was used to measure mental

health level o f the p artic ipan ts. Th e 90 -ite m s cale in c lud es

10 factors including somatization, obsessivecompulsive

symptoms, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety,

hostility, pho bia anxiety, parano ia ideation, psychoticism,

et al. The validity and the reliability of the SCL-90 have

been reported (Derogatis, 1984 ) [15].

2.4. Intervention

The entire intervention was divided into 3 stages in-

cluding the introdu ction stage, the implementation stag e,

and the feedback stage, with each stage having their own

themes. Specifically, the introduction stage has one theme:

cultivating and training interpersonal skills. Students

suffering from depression tend to withdraw from group

activities because they feel inferior, lack experiences or

have no common interests and often do not know how to

build relationship with others. Music therapy activity,

however, can help them interact with one another and

provide them with the opportunity and motivation for

participating group activity. In th e stage two (namely the

implementation stage), five themes are included, which

are relaxation training, attention training, rhythm and

movement training, music-painting training, and adapta-

tive cognition training. We have good reasons to select

these themes as our intervention focuses. For example,

for participants who suffer from anorexia, insomnia, ten-

sion, fidget and mood swings, it is difficult to calm them

down to appreciate music, so relaxation training is con-

ducted, i.e. training on how to loose all muscles or to take

deep breathing to alleviate their tension or fidget and

then they are guided to appreciate music. Attention train-

ing is to mobilize potentials of the participants fully and

for bringing their other healthy psychological factors into

normal function. Rhythm and movement training is to

help participants rebuild their adaptive behavior. Music-

J. L. Wang et al. / Health 3 (2011) 151-155

153

painting is to make the individual draw the sound he or

she wants to voice out on a piece of paper, or make him

or her paint on a piece of paper what he or she feels from

listening to the music. Adaptativ e cognition train ing is to

help them lear n how to cognize and evaluate things with

reasonable way in a positive mood. After each theme, a

group discussion was held for participants to write their

achievements or gains in the activity according to their

actual situation. In the third stage (namely the conclu-

sion stage), we focused on summary and feedback of

intervention activities. Through the design of a farewell

party, participants were reminded of the positive and

unforgettable scenes in the activity and knew how to

apply what they have learned in thei r future life and study .

3. RESULTS

An independent sample t test was carried out to ex-

amine the difference in the depression score between the

experimental group and the control group, and a

matched sample t test was run on the experimental grou p

and the control group respectively to examine the dif-

ference in the depression scores between the pre-test and

post-test. The results can be seen in Table 2.

Table 2 shows that there was no significant difference

in the depression scores between the two groups before

the experiment (t = –0.20, p > 0.05). After the music

therapy, however, significant difference was obtained

between the experimental group and control group (t =

–5.13, p < 0.001), with the score of the experimental

group lower than that of the control group. For the ex-

perimental group, we found a significant difference on

the depression score between the pre-test and the post-

test ( t= 6.93, p < 0.001). For the control group, how ev e r,

we did not find any difference between the pre-test and

post-test (t = 1.51, p > 0.05).

An independent sample t test was carried out to ex-

amine the difference in the mental health score between

the experimental group and the control group, and a

matched sample t test was run on the experimental grou p

and the control group respectively to examine the dif-

ference in the mental health score between the pre-test

and post-test. The results can be seen in Table 3.

Table 2. Difference between pre-test and post-test of depres-

sion scores in experimental group (n = 40) and control group (n

= 40).

Pre-test Post-test

Group M ± SD M ± SD t

Experimental group 45.45 ± 5.2340.21 ± 5.10 6.93***

Control group 46.01 ± 5.3446.19 ± 5.07 1.51

t -.20 -5.13***

Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001

Table 3. Difference between pre-test and post-test of mental

health scores between experimental group (n = 40) and control

group (n = 40).

Pre-Test Post-Test

Group M ± SD M ± SD t

Experimental

group 214.32 ± 39.24 198.73 ± 44.11 5.03***

Control group 213.35 ± 38.93 214.83 ± 45.39 .26

t 1.21 5.32***

Note: * p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

Table 3 showed that there was no significant differ-

ence in the mental health scores between the experimental

group and control group in the pre-test (t = 1.21, p >

0.05). However, after the musical therapy, we found a

significant difference in the mental health scores be-

tween the experimental group and the control group (t =

5.32, p < 0.001), with the score of experimental group

higher than that of control group. A significant differ-

ence between the pre-test and post-test was obtained for

the experimental group (t = 5.03, p < 0.001), while no

significant difference between the pre-test and post-test

was obtained for the control group (t = 0.26, p < 0.05).

4. DISCUSSIONS

The purpose of this study was to explore whether

group music therapy can reduce college students’ de-

pression and improve their mental health level. Our

study found that there was no significant difference in

the depression scores of the participants in the two groups

before the intervention. However, after the musical

therapy, the depression scores of the experimental group

participants reduced significantly, while there was no

significant difference between the pre-test and post-test

for the control group. This finding is in line with previ-

ous studies, which found that group music therapy have

significant effects on depression mood [16-18].This in-

dicates that music therapy is effective in ameliorating the

depression mood among college students, and our first

hypothesis is suppo rted.

Our study found that there was no significant differ-

ence in the mental health scores between the experimen-

tal group and control group before the intervention.

However, after the intervention, a significant difference

between the pre-test and post-test was obtained for the

experimental group, while no significant difference be-

tween the pre-test and post-test was obtained for the

control group. This indicates that, music therapy, through

amelioration of the depressive symptoms of the partici-

pants in the experimental group, improves the overall

mental health of the participants in the experimental

J. L. Wang et al. / Health 3 (2011) 151-155

154

group and realizes another purpose of the experiment.

Our finding is in consistent with previous research

showing that music therapy can improve mental health

[19-20] and our second hypothesis is supported.

The reason that music therapy can effectively reduce

depression and improve mental health can be summa-

rized as the following. First, the design of the interven-

tion in this study was well-directed, standardized and

operatable. Combining the music selection, the arrange-

ment in activity stage and arrangement in the apprecia-

tion process with the specific pr esentation of the college

students’ depressive symptom meets their psychological

needs. Music therapy and group counselling technique

were introduced into the intervention to train and culti-

vate the college stud ents’ ab ility to a meliorate depressive

symptoms as well as to improve their overall mental

health; meanwhile, their music aesthe tic appreciation abil-

ity as well as their ability to co mmunicate and cooperate

with the others are also trained and cultivated. Finally,

these abilities will be generalized and transferred into

their daily life. The introduction of music therapy and

group counseling technique helps this activity’s opera-

tional plan to be more well-directed and operatable, and

then improves the implementation practicability of the

music aesthetic appreciation.

Moreover, the participants’ feedback to the imple-

mentation of the music aesthetic appreciation interven-

tion showed that participants’ response to the presenta-

tion of music aesthetic appreciation activity and process

operation was generally good and they were satisfied

with the experiment as a whole. In the presentation of

music aesthetic factors, experience aesthetic principle for

the ways of music aesthetic appreciation, aesthetic char-

acteristic of the music aesthetic appreciation environ-

ment in aspect of acoustic sense and aesthetic standards

for guiding music aesthetic appreciation are the best

embodiments. In the psychological process of music

aesthetic, activities in each stage and process are imple-

mented well.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Music therapy can effectively reduce college students`

depression symptoms;

Music therapy can significantly improve mental health

level among college students.

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