Abstract
Introduction: The mental health of university students is a subject of paramount interest to our nation as they represent the society's investment for the future. In recent times there has been a growing awareness about the problems of student mental health both in its curative and preventive aspects. There is a widely held belief that music definitely soothes the mind and at the ‘Id’ level satisfies primitive aggressive and sexual-impulses (Kohut-1950–51). It brings about balance of mind where the person is taken to an internal environment where he experiences an enhanced ability, lateral thinking and fluency which are original. These are the basic requirements for a person to be creative. (Sathyanarayana-Varlakshmi Sangeet sabha-1971, personal communication.) The study is aimed at evaluating the effect of music on mental health and the possibility of using it as a therapeutic tool in psychiatric morbidity.
Need for the Study: The need for this study was felt when no base line studies on the effect of music on the mind was available, as previous studies were only observations on groups of subjects and were not homogenous, more over they were done by invalidated scientific evaluation making use of tools that were not technically designed. As students represent the society's investment for the future, the need for student mental health services is one of the major implications of this study.
Objectives:
To study the relationship between mind and music in relevance to psychiatric morbidity among students of music.
To study whether music has a preventive and protective effect on the sample representing the vulnerable age group (adolescence; adulthood).
Methodology Studies: The students who are learning music at their undergraduate level from five colleges of Mysore and Bangalore, Karnataka (South India) were chosen. The selected sample were exposed to music for a minimum of one year to four years of training and they represent the young adult population who could be encountered in a collective setting which is ideal for psychometric screening and research.
Tools:
A personal data proforma including exposure to music, selection of music as a subject and family background of music was used.
A self administered questionnaire – Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (60 item version) was used for detection of psychometric illness for the I stage screening. (The questionnaire was adopted from – The Detection of Psychometric Illness by Questionnaire, Institute of Psychiatry Maudsley Monograph.)
For detection of cases – The Present State Examination (PSE) devised by Wing and his colleagues (1974 full version) was used for GHQ positive cases and for a percentage of negative cases.
A physical examination was done for all the cases whom PSE was administered to rule out any assorted organic illness.
Statistical method: The data collected was analysed by Chi Square Test
Findings of the Study: The study has shown that 54 students out of 505 are diagnosed to have a psychiatric disorder (107/100 ie 10.7%). The figure falls in the mid-range of morbidity disorders of other prevalence studies (6% to 30%). According to PSE 46 were detected as cases who were diagnosed according to I.C.D and out of 46, 31 diagnosed as depressive neurosis (68%), 12 anxiety neurosis (26%), one case in each category of O.C.D, Hypochondriasis and Hypomania. Physical abnormalities other than Anaemia, and somatic features of anxiety, were not detected. The main findings of the study are:
Students choice of music as subject of study and family background of music have shown statistically significant relationship to psychiatric morbidity.
Students who chose music as first choice were found to have less psychiatric morbidity.
Conclusions: It is concluded that music has a positive effect on the mental status. Exposure to music would be protective and preventive. The possibility of using music as a therapeutic tool to ameliorate the psychiatric disturbance is high. Further study and structuring is needed in the selection of types of music for different conditions. The study also throws light on the prevalence of morbidity in a student population, which is a main concern of the nation. A need for mental health services in universities is indicated to serve this vulnerable age group.
The study has shown low prevalence compared to other studies. Music can be identified as a positive factor adjunct to education and recreation facilities for the students, thereby enabling to promote creativity.