Examining the Utility of Perceptual Noise Categorization in Pediatric and Neonatal Hospital Units

Medical and nursing staff working in hospitals often experience exposure to extreme sound environments, and there is growing evidence of the negative impacts. Previous research highlighted various complexities regarding noise sources in hospitals; however, identifications of intrinsic noise categories that can reveal the complex mixture of existing hospital noise is still limited. The objective of this work was to identify intrinsic categories of the noise sources based on staff perceived annoyance and explore clear associations of these categorized noise sources with psychological perceptions. The staff perceptual responses regarding hospital noise were assessed by conducting surveys at the three pediatric and neonatal care units in two hospitals. Using principle component analysis (PCA), the psychological annoyance responses of 94 participants were used to derive the inherent structural patterns of the existing noise sources. The derived PCA categorization was validated on mixed-model analysis of variances, and employed on regression models to explore potential associations between the categorized noise factors and the staff’s psychological perceptions. The results highlighted three intrinsic noise categories and their negative impacts on staff’s psychological perceptions including work/rest disturbance and noisiness. Taken as a whole, the findings better reveal problematic noise source categories and establish a framework for hospital noise control that is less source-specific and more broadly generalizable.