Introduction: Children are the most sensitive patients when confronted with illness and the illness-related emotional reaction to pain. For this reason all efforts have to be made to enable their recovery with no traumatic experiences. Sick children are often treated with invasive medical procedures, which can cause pain, fear, stress and anxiety. Music is one of several non-pharmacological therapeutic tools which can reduce pain, anxiety and fear among the adults and children. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore how music therapy affects detection and level of pain among ill children, how it affect stress and anxiety in the context of medical procedures to which children are subjected to in various periods of their lives, and what are the roles of nurses in such a therapeutic context. Work methods: The thesis features the descriptive method, with an overview of Slovenian and especially international literature relevant for the topic. Results: Cooperation between the nurse and the child is of essential importance. Research results have confirmed that children cooperated better with those nurses, who provided them with non-pharmaceutical means of healing and approached them more personally. Music as a non-pharmacological means of pain relief reduces both the need for analgesics and negative feelings prior to, during and after medical care. Discussion and conclusion: Music therapy should not be treated as an alternative method of medical treatment, but as a therapeutic technique with individual approach. Children are precious to us and we should lead them to a healthy existence with no pain whenever possible; non-pharmaceutical treatment of pain and further research in this direction are of fundamental importance. It is advisable to think of an increased use on non-pharmacological means of pain treatment in the clinical practice and its introduction to the everyday practice.
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