Ratcliff 2014.

Study characteristics
Methods	CCT 3‐arm parallel‐group design
Participants	Adult cancer patients who had undergone hematopoietic stem cell transplant Type of cancer: leukemia (n = 57, 63.3%), lymphoma (n = 13, 14.4%), other (n = 20, 22.2%) Total N randomized: 90 N randomized to music therapy group: 29 N randomized to unstructured music group: 30 (not used in this review) N randomized to control group: 31 N analyzed in music therapy group: 29 N analyzed in unstructured music group: 30 (not used in this review) N analyzed in control group: 31 Mean age: 44.3 years Sex: 47 (52%) female, 43 (48%) male Ethnicity: 59 (65.5%) white, 7 (7.8%) African‐American, 11 (12.2%) Latino, 4 (4.4%) Asian, 9 (10%) other Setting: outpatient or inpatient in transition to outpatient setting Country: USA
Interventions	3 study groups: Music therapy group: participants met with music therapist to select music from a researcher‐provided database and music therapist created 2 CDs. The first CD was designed to transition the participant from an anxious/tense state to a relaxed state and the second was designed to transition the participant from a sad/depressed state to an energized state. Participants reviewed and edited CDs with the music therapist and in the final session listened to 1 of the 2 CDs. Unstructured music group: participants met with a mental health therapist and created 2 CDs with music selected from 15 music tracks from the same database as the MT group that made them feel relaxed. In session 2, participants selected music that made them feel energized. The tracks were organized into two 30‐min CDs (1 including relaxing songs and the second including energizing songs) based on personal preference with little input from the therapist. Control condition: standard care Music selections provided: patient‐preferred music selected from a researcher provided database Number of sessions: 4 Length of sessions: 50 min Categorized as music therapy
Outcomes	Mood (POMS‐Short Form): change score (computed by JB) Quality of Life (FACIT‐G and FACIT‐BMT): change scores Cancer‐related symptoms (MD Anderson Symptom Inventory): not included in meta‐analysis
Notes	—
Risk of bias
Bias	Authors' judgement	Support for judgement
Random sequence generation (selection bias)	Unclear risk	"Patients were randomly assigned to one of three groups: (1) ISO‐principle music therapy (MT) group, (2) unstructured music (UM) group, and (3) usual care (UC) control group" (p. 2).
Allocation concealment (selection bias)	Unclear risk	Not reported
Blinding of participants and personnel (performance bias) All outcomes	Low risk	Blinding of music therapist and participants was not possible.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) Objective outcomes	Low risk	This study did not include objective outcomes.
Blinding of outcome assessment (detection bias) Subjective outcomes	High risk	Self‐report measures were used for subjective outcomes.
Incomplete outcome data (attrition bias) All outcomes	High risk	At the 1‐week follow‐up, there was 8.4% attrition. At the 4‐ week follow‐up, there was 27% attrition (additional data received from Dr. Lorenzo).
Selective reporting (reporting bias)	High risk	"...blood samples were drawn but results will be reported in future manuscript." (p. 3).
Other bias	Low risk	"This research was funded in part by a grant from The Maurice Amado Foundation, by Cancer Center Support Grant CA016672 from the National Institutes of Health, and by a cancer prevention fellowship for Chelsea Ratcliff supported by the National Cancer Institute Grant R25T CA057730, Shine Chang, Ph.D., Principal Investigator" (p. 8).