Effects of Background Music and Multimedia Exposure on Patient-Reported Anxiety in Ophthalmology Waiting Rooms: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Purpose: To evaluate the impact of waiting room media interventions on patient-reported anxiety, satisfaction, and perceived helpfulness in a high-volume tertiary-care ophthalmology clinic. Patients and Methods: This is a single-center, prospective quasi-experimental quality improvement study performed at a teaching hospital clinic. Three waiting room environments were implemented using a pseudo-randomized day-of-week allocation: (1) No Media, (2) Music Only (instrumental jazz/piano, 40– 70 dB), and (3) Multimedia (slow-moving ocean and aquatic nature footage accompanied by background music). Each group was assigned 125 participants. Anxiety, satisfaction, and perceived helpfulness were measured using 0– 10 visual analogue scales. Outcomes were compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post hoc testing and Welch’s t -tests where appropriate. Results: In total there were 375 participants, with no dropouts. Anxiety scores differed significantly across waiting room environments (F(2372)=19.09, P< 0.001). Both Music Only (mean 3.59) and Multimedia (mean 3.74) significantly reduced anxiety compared with No Media (mean 5.69; mean difference 2.10, 95% CI 1.34– 2.86, P< 0.001 and mean difference 1.94, 95% CI 1.18– 2.70, P< 0.001, respectively). Multimedia yielded significantly higher satisfaction scores than No Media (P=0.023) and Music Only (P=0.041). Multimedia was also rated significantly more helpful than Music Only (mean difference 1.03, 95% CI 0.42– 1.65, P=0.001). Conclusion: Low-cost sensory interventions significantly reduce patient anxiety in ophthalmology waiting rooms. While background music alone is sufficient for anxiolysis, multimedia environments provide additional benefits in satisfaction and perceived helpfulness. Benefits were particularly pronounced in emergent-care patients, highlighting the utility of these interventions in high-anxiety clinical scenarios. These findings support the implementation of scalable, low-resource strategies to improve patient experience in busy outpatient ophthalmology settings. Keywords: patient experience, sensory environment, background music, audiovisual stimulation, outpatient care