ReviewPloS one2026
Music interventions to improve women's health outcomes in the preconception, antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum periods: An overview of reviews.
Review in PloS one, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
aimTo synthesize evidence from systematic reviews of interventions that employ music to improve women's health outcomes in the preconception, antenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods.
methodsSystematic reviews published between 2010 and 2025 that addressed music interventions for women in the preconception, antenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum periods were sourced from MEDLINE, Scopus, Embase, PsychINFO, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews in March 2025. 754 systematic reviews were imported into Covidence software. Title-abstract screening, and full text review were conducted in duplicate by a team of 5 screeners. Data were extracted to summarize key characteristics and meta-analysis results. The methodological quality of the included reviews was assessed using the AMSTAR-2 tool. Risk of bias and GRADE quality assessments were extracted; when not reported, MM and BK assessed the risk of bias and quality of evidence.
resultsAggregated findings from 20 reviews suggest that music interventions in the preconception, antepartum, and intrapartum periods have potential to alleviate anxiety (SMD ranging from -7.0 to -0.21), depression (SMD -3.67 to -0.51), and pain (SMD -2.70 to -0.92). Effects from implementation in the postpartum period appear more limited, albeit with a notable exception of demonstrated benefit in reducing depressive symptoms (SMD:-0.75; 95%CI:-1.47,-0.03). Interpretation of these findings warrant caution due to important methodological limitations related to widespread bias, heterogeneity, and imprecision in effect estimation.
conclusionsMusic interventions are a promising approach for women across the perinatal continuum of care. However, significant concerns with the methodological rigor of existing studies need to be addressed before implementation in clinical settings. Further research is critical to identifying design characteristics and implementation modalities of music interventions that most effectively improve women's health outcomes. Strengthening the evidence on music interventions is vital to informing the effective integration of complementary and alternative medicine approaches into person-centered care strategies for women's health.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.