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      Fit to Perform: An Investigation of Higher Education Music Students’ Perceptions, Attitudes, and Behaviors toward Health

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          Abstract

          Making music at the highest international standards can be rewarding, but it is also challenging, with research highlighting pernicious ways in which practicing and performing can affect performers’ health and wellbeing. Several studies indicate that music students’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward health and healthy living are less than optimal, especially considering the multiple physical and psychological demands of their day-to-day work. This article presents the results of a comprehensive screening protocol that investigated lifestyle and health-related attitudes and behaviors among 483 undergraduate and postgraduate students (mean age = 21.29 years ± 3.64; 59% women) from ten conservatoires. The protocol included questionnaires measuring wellbeing, general health, health-promoting behaviors, perfectionism, coping, sleep quality, and fatigue. On each measure, the data were compared with existing published data from similar age groups. The results indicate that music students have higher levels of wellbeing and lower fatigue than comparable samples outside of music. However, they also reveal potentially harmful perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward health. Specifically, engagement in health responsibility and stress management was low, which along with high perfectionistic strivings, limited use of coping strategies, poor sleep quality, and low self-rated health, paints a troubling picture both for the music students and for those who support their training. The findings point to the need for more (and more effective) health education and promotion initiatives within music education; in particular, musicians should be better equipped with mental skills to cope with constant pressure to excel and high stress levels. In part, this calls for musicians themselves to engage in healthier lifestyles, take greater responsibility for their own health, and be aware of and act upon health information in order to achieve and sustain successful practice and performance. For that to happen, however, music educators, administrators, and policy makers must play an active role in providing supportive environments where health and wellbeing is considered integral to expert music training.

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          The challenge of defining wellbeing

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            Gender differences in stress and coping styles

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              Development of the QuickDASH: comparison of three item-reduction approaches.

              The purpose of this study was to develop a short, reliable, and valid measure of physical function and symptoms related to upper-limb musculoskeletal disorders by shortening the full, thirty-item DASH (Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand) Outcome Measure. Three item-reduction techniques were used on the cross-sectional field-testing data derived from a study of 407 patients with various upper-limb conditions. These techniques were the concept-retention method, the equidiscriminative item-total correlation, and the item response theory (Rasch modeling). Three eleven-item scales were created. Data from a longitudinal cohort study in which the DASH questionnaire was administered to 200 patients with shoulder and wrist/hand disorders were then used to assess the reliability (Cronbach alpha and test-retest reliability) and validity (cross-sectional and longitudinal construct) of the three scales. Results were compared with those derived with the full DASH. The three versions were comparable with regard to their measurement properties. All had a Cronbach alpha of > or = 0.92 and an intraclass correlation coefficient of > or = 0.94. Evidence of construct validity was established (r > or = 0.64 with single-item indices of pain and function). The concept-retention method, the most subjective of the approaches to item reduction, ranked highest in terms of its similarity to the original DASH. The concept-retention version is named the QuickDASH. It contains eleven items and is similar with regard to scores and properties to the full DASH. A comparison of item-reduction approaches suggested that the retention of clinically sensible and important content produced a comparable, if not slightly better, instrument than did more statistically driven approaches.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Psychol
                Front Psychol
                Front. Psychol.
                Frontiers in Psychology
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                1664-1078
                10 October 2017
                2017
                : 8
                : 1558
                Affiliations
                [1] 1Centre for Performance Science, Royal College of Music , London, United Kingdom
                [2] 2Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London , London, United Kingdom
                [3] 3Cardiff School of Sport, Cardiff Metropolitan University , Cardiff, United Kingdom
                [4] 4Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance , London, United Kingdom
                [5] 5Royal Northern College of Music , Manchester, United Kingdom
                Author notes

                Edited by: Graham Frederick Welch, UCL Institute of Education, United Kingdom

                Reviewed by: Andrea Rebecca Creech, Laval University, Canada; Ioulia Papageorgi, University of Nicosia, Cyprus

                *Correspondence: Aaron Williamon, aaron.williamon@ 123456rcm.ac.uk

                This article was submitted to Performance Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology

                Article
                10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01558
                5641399
                29066983
                e0fea415-4c68-4c89-b6a7-3188b426c8c5
                Copyright © 2017 Araújo, Wasley, Perkins, Atkins, Redding, Ginsborg and Williamon.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 02 June 2017
                : 28 August 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 3, Tables: 5, Equations: 0, References: 142, Pages: 19, Words: 0
                Funding
                Funded by: Arts and Humanities Research Council 10.13039/501100000267
                Award ID: AH/K002287/1
                Categories
                Psychology
                Original Research

                Clinical Psychology & Psychiatry
                coping,fatigue,health promotion,music,perfectionism,performance,sleep,wellbeing

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