Mexican Farm Workers: Article Analysis

The purpose of the Article was to evaluate the effectiveness of music as a form of therapy for Mexican farm workers in the US. According to the Article, Mexican farm workers seem have been suffering from anxiety, depression and social isolation. As a result a study was conducted that suggested that music therapy could be a viable method to use. The idea was to use Community Music Therapy in order to accommodate the values of the community and the cultural and social aspects of their health, relationships and music. The reason for this was so it would also tackle the isolation aspect as well. The study was based on Mexican farm worker camps that that met the criteria. This involved 56 participants from the camps in a randomized control trial in which 26 of participants were
One such flaw was the conclusion made at the end as a result of the data, was that the music therapy group and condition group gave similar results at the end of the study. However the effect size of the music therapy suggested that there was some potential for music to be a form of therapy against depression, anxiety and social isolation for Mexican farm workers. This was shown during the posttest and follow up for depression, follow up for anxiety and posttest for social isolation. Also the size of the total amount of the participants was a small number which also suggests that the validity of the study could be questionable. Another flaw was with study itself in that were many ways in which the study could have been compromised. The Article mentions that there was a situation in which some of the participant camps migrated back to Mexico, affecting the size of the music therapy group. There was also the discussion the idea of participants not fully participating and that the interaction of the research staff could have affected the results as