Music therapy research trends in Spain

Resumen

The use of music for therapeutic purposes has a long history in Spain, but research in Music Therapy is under development. Music therapy is applied in education, medical and community settings and training programmes for music therapists are offered at different universities and private institutions. Previous studies on the status of music therapy research in Spain underlined the need for increasing the number of doctoral theses, journal indexed publications and research studies carried out by Spanish musictherapists. The aim of this study is to update information on the status of Music therapy research in Spain. Data collection includes the review of online databases as SCOPUS, WOS, MEDLINE, PSYCINFO, PUBMED, TESEO (Spanish Dissertation Database). Inclusion criteria are journal indexed publications,research studies and doctoral theses carried out by Spanish music therapists in the last fourth decades. Data analysis covers single and cross-data categories of information to identify strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT analysis). Descriptive results of this study presents andprofiles "trends and gaps" of music therapy research in Spain and provide clinicians, researchers and students information related to clinical practice and other professional areas of music therapy in this country.