All study participants were employees at a nursing home, an
industry with an unusually high turnover rate. When staffers at
one Pennsylvania facility participated in six drumming sessions
with their coworkers, however, they experienced nearly a
50-percent improvement in mood, including a decrease in
feelings of fatigue, anxiety and depression.
Moreover, during the year following the drumming sessions,
49 fewer employees resigned than had the previous year, saving
the facility nearly $400,000 in costs associated with training
new hires.
These findings suggest that incorporating drumming circles
into the lives of employees can be a cost-effective means of
helping workers and reducing turnover, both in long-term care
and other industries, study author Dr. Barry Bittman said.
"We're not just talking about long-term care," said
Bittman, who is based at the Mind-Body Wellness Center in
Meadville, Pennsylvania. "There's no reason this wouldn't work"
in other contexts, as well, he noted.
Workers in long-term care typically exhibit a turnover rate
estimated at between 40- and 100-percent per year, which
research shows is largely a result of emotional factors, such
as burnout.
During the study, Bittman and his colleagues asked 112
employees at the Wesbury United Methodist Retirement Community
to participate in drumming circles for one hour per week for
six weeks. Before and after the six-week sessions, participants
completed questionnaires designed to assess their mood.
Participants came from all parts of the facility, and
included nurses, dietary workers, accountants, administrators
and housekeepers.
In the drumming sessions, participants performed a series
of exercises, including beating the drum to the rhythm of their
own name, copying the rhythm of others' names, representing
their feelings via drumbeats, playing along to music, and
discussing ongoing stresses with the group, if they so chose.
Immediately after the sessions were completed, people
showed a 46-percent improvement in mood. Six weeks after the
sessions ended, the same people showed a more than 62-percent
improvement in mood, suggesting that emotional boost can
continue long after the music has ended.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Margaret Bailey of the
Mind-Body Wellness Center, who facilitated most of the drumming
sessions, said she suspected the exercise helps people because
hearing the rhythm of others' names introduced coworkers, and
playing together "creates a connectiveness and energy within
the group."
This connectiveness, in turn, enables people to feel
supported by others, talk about their problems and cope with
them before a situation escalates into something that makes
workers want to leave their jobs, Bailey noted.
According to Bittman, making music may bring people
together better than other group activities, such as group
retreats or team sports, because it is more cost-effective and
accessible to people of all physical abilities. Furthermore,
music may inspire more openness to others by asking people to
adopt "a level of communication (they) weren't accustomed to,"
he noted.
Bittman added that he uses similar techniques with patients
living in long-term facilities and their families, as well as
those with cancer and other chronic illnesses.
The study, funded by Yamaha, appears in the journal
Advances in Mind-Body Medicine. Bittman and his colleagues
discussed the results Thursday during a press conference in New
York.
SOURCE: Advances in Mind-Body Medicine, Fall/Winter 2003.
