The effects of background music tempo on the work attention performance of workers with schizophrenia

1 Introduction

Background music is very popular in hotels, restaurants, offices, banks, shops and hospitals [1], and has been the subject of many investigations on the influence of music and sounds on the work performance of individuals [2, 3]. Appropriate application of background music can help increase the effectiveness of occupational therapy [4]. This investigation examines whether background music affects the behavior or attention of individuals with schizophrenia in work environments, and whether it helps stimulate improved work attention. Work attention performance refers to both speed and accuracy, and is computed as the work quantity minus the error quantity [3, 5]. Scheufele introduced background music into a job training group for chronically psychotic patients, and found that background music could help trainees to focus, reduce their anxiety, and complete job assignments more quickly [6]. The “occupational form and occupational performance” model maintains that occupational performance changes with occupational form [7]. In this model, background music in the work environment is an attribute of the occupational form [7, 8], and thus may affect work performance in accordance with this model [3, 7].

Work attention in chronic schizophrenia is an important issue in the literature on vocational rehabilitation [2, 8]. One investigation has found that background music in the workplace should focus mainly on building an environment in which listeners feel loved and safe, and avoiding music that causes individuals to feel stressed or sad [3]. Researchers have also found that background music tends to increase attention test scores of persons with schizophrenia, and that this rise in test attention scores is statistically significant [8]. Additionally, a previous investigation found that if background music is played in the work environment, then music without lyrics is preferable because songs with lyrics are likely to reduce worker attention and performance [4].

Patients with schizophrenia often experience attention deficit disorder [2, 5]. The attention performance levels of schizophrenic patients play an important role in enabling them to return to normal living and working. Good attention ability can not only improve their job performance, but also help them to learn about socialized behaviors. About 75% to 85% of patients with schizophrenia show conditions such as poor verbal exposition, low alertness and memory, lack of attention focus, lifeless facial expression, lumbering movement and slow information processing [2, 9], all of which can further reduce their employment competence [2].

Caring for patients with schizophrenia requires not only medication, but also appropriate environmental stimuli and job training [9]. Therefore, this study posits that the tempo of background music influences the attention performance of workers with schizophrenia.

Numerous investigations agree that background music affects attention performance. Previous studies on whether background music affects behavior and attention level generally focused on factors such as music genre, volume and lyrics [3, 10]. However, how background music tempo affects the attention performance of workers with chronic schizophrenia is an important issue in mental health care, but has rarely been examined in the research literature. Therefore, this study investigates the influence of background music tempo on attention performance in workers with chronic schizophrenia.

2 Methods

This investigation adopted a Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) design to explore the effect of background music tempo on work attention performance in workers with chronic schizophrenia. The trial was run with four conditions, namely no music, fast tempo, slow tempo and white noise. The experiment had three steps, and was performed with four groups of subjects (n = 52, 51, 53 and 52, respectively).

3 Results

This investigation focuses on the effect of background music on the attention performance of listeners. In occupational form and occupational performance theory, music is an attribute of the occupational form. The theory states that occupational performance changes with occupational form, theoretically explaining the effect of changes in background noise and music on human behaviors. Music likely affects the listener’s degree of alertness and behavior. One study concluded that background music alleviates restlessness and distraction in psychiatric patients, and enables daily living activities to proceed more smoothly [4]. The theory that background music is a component of occupational form, and can affect attention, can explain our observations [7, 8].

This investigation found that workers with schizophrenia performed with higher attention scores under all three background sound stimuli than in the quiet, no-music environment. This observation result confirms the findings of a previous investigation, which had a larger sample size than this investigation, that background music tended to raise the attention test scores of persons with schizophrenia [8], thus indicating that background music may improve attention performance of persons with chronic schizophrenia. The diversion effect of music means that the listener tends to ignore the fatigue of running, thus enabling continuity of action, extending running time, and reducing lactic acid build-up [12]. Previous investigations found that listening to fast-tempo music can increase the secretion of adrenaline [13], and that loud, fast-tempo music can enhance athletic performance [14]. However, this investigation found that slow-tempo music was more effective than fast-tempo music for improving attention performance. The total number of answered questions was significantly higher with fast-tempo background music than in the no-music environment, but the attention performance was not significantly different. Although fast-tempo music, like slow-tempo music, increased the number of answered questions, it also led to a higher proportion of incorrect answers than slow-tempo music, and therefore affected the overall attention-performance scores. This finding is worthy of future research, and can serve as a reference for practical work environment.

This research project still has some limitations. This investigation adopted only one assessment tool to measure attention performance. and was performed in an experimental environment, rather than a formal working environment. Moreover, the groups did not all complete testing in the same exact room, or at the same time.

Nevertheless, as this investigation accumulated data from 208 individuals with schizophrenia who had been accepted into a vocational rehabilitation and work seeking program, its experimental results can certainly offer some reference values.

5 Conclusion and suggestions

Attention performance in workers with chronic schizophrenia is a worthy research topic. This study draws the following conclusion and suggestions:

Slow-tempo music is probably more desirable than fast-tempo music when playing background music in a work environment involving individuals with schizophrenic, slow-tempo music is probably more desirable than fast-tempo music.

Conflict of interest

None to report.