• Noise & health · Jan 2010

    Review

    A pilot study of sound levels in an Australian adult general intensive care unit.

    • Rosalind M Elliott, Sharon M McKinley, and David Eager.
    • Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. rmelliot@nsccahs.health.nsw.gov.au
    • Noise Health. 2010 Jan 1;12(46):26-36.

    AbstractHigh technology and activity levels in the intensive care unit (ICU) lead to elevated and disturbing sound levels. As noise has been shown to affect the ability of patients to rest and sleep, continuous sound levels are required during sleep investigations. The aim of this pilot study was to develop a robust protocol to measure continuous sound levels for a larger more substantive future study to improve sleep for the ICU patient. A review of published studies of sound levels in intensive care settings revealed sufficient information to develop a study protocol. The study protocol resulted in 10 usable recordings out of 11 attempts to collect pilot data. The mean recording time was 17.49 +/- 4.5 h. Sound levels exceeded recommendations made by the World Health Organization (WHO) for hospitals. The mean equivalent sound level (LAeq) was 56.22 +/- 1.65 dB and LA90 was 46.8 +/- 2.46 dB. The data reveal the requirement for a noise reduction program within this ICU.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…