Acoustic assessment of speech privacy curtains in two nursing units

Noise & Health
Diana S Pope, Erik T Miller-Klein

Abstract

Hospitals have complex soundscapes that create challenges to patient care. Extraneous noise and high reverberation rates impair speech intelligibility, which leads to raised voices. In an unintended spiral, the increasing noise may result in diminished speech privacy, as people speak loudly to be heard over the din. The products available to improve hospital soundscapes include construction materials that absorb sound (acoustic ceiling tiles, carpet, wall insulation) and reduce reverberation rates. Enhanced privacy curtains are now available and offer potential for a relatively simple way to improve speech privacy and speech intelligibility by absorbing sound at the hospital patient's bedside. Acoustic assessments were performed over 2 days on two nursing units with a similar design in the same hospital. One unit was built with the 1970s' standard hospital construction and the other was newly refurbished (2013) with sound-absorbing features. In addition, we determined the effect of an enhanced privacy curtain versus standard privacy curtains using acoustic measures of speech privacy and speech intelligibility indexes. Privacy curtains provided auditory protection for the patients. In general, that protection was increased by th...Continue Reading

References

Jul 1, 1976·American Journal of Public Health·D Fife, E Rappaport
Feb 3, 2005·International Journal of Cardiology·Inger HagermanTöres Theorell
Oct 6, 2010·Journal of Clinical Nursing·Diana Pope
Nov 3, 2010·American Journal of Critical Care : an Official Publication, American Association of Critical-Care Nurses·Nancy LawsonDiana Pope
Sep 8, 2011·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·Selen OkcuOwen Samuels
Nov 30, 2011·Noise & Health·Dana K Gladd, Gabrielle H Saunders
Apr 23, 2013·Research in Nursing & Health·Diana S PopeSean Kampel
Jul 19, 2013·The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·Erica E RyherdTimothy Hsu

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Citations

Aug 15, 2017·Clinical Nurse Specialist CNS·Christine L Locke, Diana S Pope

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