Music Therapy in the development of parental grief: integrative review

Abstract

Introduction. Parental Grief is a process of intense suffering and extremely painful. Music Therapy is a potentially effective tool in assisting Parental Grief, that is, parents who have lost their children, reducing a possible pathological condition. Objective. To observe how Music Therapy can help parents who have lost their children to cope with grief. Method. This is an integrative literature review, carried out on the following databases: Virtual Health Library (BVS); CAPES Periódicos; PubMed®; Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), using the descriptors in portuguese and their correlates in english: Musicoterapia (Music Therapy); luto (grief); pesar (bereavement and mourning); morte (death); pais (parents); mãe (mother); cuidadores (caregivers); família (family), combining the descriptors using the boolean operators "AND" and "OR". Included were: articles published between 2019 and 2024, in portuguese and english, and which used Music Therapy intervention for bereaved parents, excluding: those indexed repeatedly, literature reviews, theses and dissertations, and those which did not address "Music Therapy in the development of grief in parents who have lost their children". Results. Five articles were analyzed. It was observed that music therapy was applied to important end-of-life passages and the creation of a legacy, such as recordings of heartbeat sounds combined with familiar music. The five articles analyzed described the application of the intervention by music therapists. There is a need for more studies on the subject.  Conclusion. Music Therapy can be used to build a legacy, making it a potentially effective option for parents who have lost their children.