A sociological perspective on the improvement of social isolation in cancer patients by musical vocal activities
Abstract
Based on a sociological perspective, this study employed a randomized controlled trial to recruit 120 cancer patients, who were allocated to an experimental group and a control group. The experimental group received a 12-week music-vocal activity intervention in addition to routine rehabilitation care, while the control group received routine care only. Six outcome indicators were assessed: social isolation, perceived social support, frequency of social activities, vocal self-efficacy, quality of life in the social functioning dimension, and group cohesion. Results showed that all indicators in the experimental group improved significantly compared with baseline and with the control group (P < 0.001), with the greatest improvements observed at 12 weeks. Intention-to-treat analyses with multiple imputation for missing data confirmed the robustness of the findings. The study demonstrates that systematic music and vocal activities can effectively reduce social isolation, enhance perceived social support, promote social participation, and improve both quality of life and group cohesion by strengthening patients’ self-efficacy and group identity. These results provide a promising pathway for social reconstruction during cancer rehabilitation.
Copyright (c) 2026 Shengnan Dai
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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