College of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
J Acoust Soc Am. 2011 Sep;130(3):1348-58. doi: 10.1121/1.3607418.
Intensive care units (ICUs) have important but challenging sound environments. Alarms and equipment generate high levels of noise and ICUs are typically designed with hard surfaces. A poor sound environment can add to stress and make auditory tasks more difficult for clinicians. However few studies have linked more detailed analyses of the sound environment to nurse wellbeing and performance. This study is aimed at understanding the relationships between objective acoustic measures and self-reported nurse outcomes. Two 20-bed ICUs with similar patient acuity and treatment models were tested: A recently built neurological ICU and a 1980s-era medical-surgical ICU. The medical-surgical ICU was perceived as louder, more annoying, and having a greater negative impact of noise on work performance, health outcomes, and anxiety as compared to the neurological ICU. Surprisingly, there were little differences between two ICU sound environments based on traditional overall noise measures. The objective differences between the occupied sound environments in the two units only emerged through a more comprehensive analysis of the "occurrence rate" of peak and maximum levels, frequency content, and the speech interference level. Furthermore, mid-level transient sound occurrence rates were significantly and positively correlated to perceived annoyance and loudness levels.
重症监护病房（ICUs）的声音环境非常重要，但也极具挑战性。警报器和设备会产生高强度的噪音，而重症监护病房通常采用硬表面设计。糟糕的声音环境会增加压力，使临床医生更难完成听觉任务。然而，很少有研究将声音环境的更详细分析与护士的健康和绩效联系起来。本研究旨在了解客观声学测量值与护士自我报告结果之间的关系。我们对两个具有相似患者严重程度和治疗模式的 20 床 ICU 进行了测试：一个是最近建成的神经科 ICU，另一个是 20 世纪 80 年代的综合科 ICU。与神经科 ICU 相比，综合科 ICU 被认为噪音更大、更烦人，对工作绩效、健康结果和焦虑的噪声负面影响更大。令人惊讶的是，基于传统的整体噪声测量值，两个 ICU 声音环境之间几乎没有差异。只有通过更全面地分析峰值和最大水平、频率内容和语音干扰水平的“出现率”，才能发现两个单位的占用声音环境之间的客观差异。此外，中等级别的瞬态声音出现率与感知到的烦恼和响度水平呈显著正相关。
