The impact of breathing and music on stress levels of clients and visitors in a psychiatric emergency room

• Waiting in a psychiatric emergency room can be a difficult experience.
• We assess the impact of breathing and music listening on perceived stress levels.
• The interventions reduced perceived stress by 2–3 points on a 10 point Likert scale.
• The interventions can be used on an as needed basis to impact the unit environment.

Waiting in the Diagnostic Emergency Center (DEC), a busy psychiatric emergency room, can be a stressful and anxiety-producing experience in and of itself. The authors examined the effectiveness of interventions such as therapeutic breathing exercises and music listening on reducing perceived stress levels of clients and visitors in such a setting. These interventions were separately conducted for 30 min once per week over a period of four months. Effectiveness of the breathing and music interventions was measured through a voluntary survey. This survey measured pre- and post-intervention stress levels through self-report on a 10-point Likert scale. The interventions were shown to reduce median stress levels by two to three points on a 10-point scale, reaching statistical significance at the 97% confidence level with a medium to large effect size. The project demonstrated that it was possible to develop music and breathing interventions so they can be utilized in the DEC as well as other branches of our hospital system, providing increased support and comfort to our clients and visitors during their times of crisis.