T he purpose of this study was to an aly ze th e cont ent s of r esearches
published in th e Journal of Mu sic T h er apy (JMT ) from 1987 t o 1998 in order
to des cribe the t r ends in th e focu s , modes of inquiry , t opics , an d specialt ies .
T he ch ar act eristics of th e 184 JMT articles published throu ghout th e past 12
y ear s wer e t abulat ed, categorized and qu antified.
T he pr eferred modes of inquiry wer e ex periment al (54.3%), descript iv e
(34.2%), hist orical (6.5%), and philosophical (4.9%) methodologies . T he focu ses
in the r es ear ch th emes wer e (a ) 41.8% on the topics of foun dation al
r esear ch , (b ) 35.3% on disciplin e r esearch , (c ) 22.8% on mu sic ther apy r elated
r esear ch t opics . When articles wer e categorized by specialty , 23.3% of the
tot al articles refer to people without disabilit ies 18.9% refer to children with
disabilit ies , 13.8% refer t o elderly people, 10.6% r efer to people with medical
problem, 9.5% r efer t o mu sic th er apist s and 7.9% r efer t o the people with
psy chiatric problems .
T he t r ends of mu sic th er apy r es ear ch in ex periment al studies hav e
cont inued t o grow in the 1980s to the while th e number of descript iv e
r esear ch es hav e declined. Hist orical and philosophical studies h av e b een v ery
limit ed in their numb er s howev er , th ey showed r elat iv ely mor e art icles
published for the y ear of 1997- 98.
Main ideas dealt in mu sic ther apy stu dies wer e dat a based ex periment al
r esear ch es measuring th e psy chological, emotion al and phy siological effect s
on human b ehavior . F or the descriptiv e r es ear ches , surv ey s for th e subject \' s
pr efer ences an d att itu des towards mu sic wer e the most common theme t o be
discu s s ed.
T he subj ect s wer e mainly from th e g eneral population an d childr en with
disabilit ies including dev elopment al disabilit ies and s en sory and affect
disorder . T he resear ch es in elderly people has in cr eased sin ce 1985 and
placed it self right aft er the stu dies in g eneral medicine, t o mu sic ther apist s ,
and in psy chiatric car e unit s .