Effects of virtual music therapy on Burnout Syndrome in health workers in Tertiary Hospitals

Background: Health workers are vulnerable to experiencing psychological and physiological stress, including burnout syndrome (BOS). BOS can be measured using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) assessment. BOS can also affect heart rate variability (HRV). Music therapy is one of the BOS therapies in the recovery phase. This study aims to evaluate the effects of virtual music therapy on "Burnout Syndrome" in health workers in Tertiary Hospitals

Methods: This research is a qualitative study and a randomized control trial using a pre-and post-test control group study design on healthcare workers at Dr. Kariadi Hospital and Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital for three months. Subjects were divided into two groups, namely the intervention group and the control group, each consisting of 20 people. The instruments used were the MBI-HSS questionnaire and heart rate variability measuring devices for the pretest and posttest. Depending on the data distribution analysis performed using the Shapiro-Wilk test, data analysis was performed using either the Mann-Whitney test or the independent T-test. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 21.0 for Windows.


Results: This study shows significant differences in the MBI-HSS scores between the intervention and control groups (p<0.05). In the HRV-SDNN scores, there were only significant differences in the control group (p<0.05), although there was an increase in the mean values in the intervention group.

Conclusion: The use of music therapy according to culture and individual preferences can significantly affect the MBI-HSS score, which indicates burnout and increases the HRV value.