Music therapy findings from a pilot randomised controlled trial of school-based arts therapies in the United Kingdom

One in five children and young people in the United Kingdom have a probable mental health condition and feel unhappy with their lives, presenting the lowest life satisfaction across Europe. Children and young people’s needs are now believed to have drastically exceeded the capabilities of the national healthcare system, and there is a call to radically rethink the scope of support and early interventions. In this pilot randomised controlled study, we aimed to investigate the delivery of a school-based music therapy intervention and to test whether all elements of the study design (e.g. recruitment, randomisation, follow-up) can work together in a larger study. The process and outcomes were evaluated by children and teachers through standardised questionnaires of quality of life, well-being and life functioning (Child Outcome Rating Scale), emotional and behavioural difficulties (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire with impact supplement), and biomarkers (FitBits) assessing children’s sleep. Adherence to the therapeutic protocol was rated by the researcher and the music therapist. Overall, improvements were observed in all outcome measures. However, in questionnaires of quality of life and Child Outcome Rating Scale, these improvements did not reach statistical significance when baseline differences were considered. Significant improvements were observed in the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire with impact supplement and in children’s sleep, with children attending music therapy sleeping ~35 min longer than those who did not. All sessions were given an average rating of 9/10, indicating that children’s session quality ratings were high and consistent across sessions. Sample size calculations for future large-scale studies were performed, and recommendations were provided regarding how to improve the effectiveness of music therapy from children’s perspectives.