Abstract
Objectives: Noise in hospital is recognized as a problem to affect the health of the patients and the staff, but strategies to reduce it and measures for its assessments are not fully established. We acoustically measured and analyzed the noise in pediatric ICU (PICU) which was shown to be the noisiest place in hospital by previous studies. Methods: We measured sound level in PICU of Osaka Medical Center for Maternal and Child Health. Equivalent continuous A-weighted sound pressure level (LAeq) for 5 minutes and peak sound pressure level (LAPK) was measured at 10:00 of consecutive 7 days and every three hours in a weekday. The frequency analysis was performed in 1/3-octave bands in the range of 20∼12,500Hz. Results: LAeq was more than 60 dBA and LAPK was more than 90 dBA at all the mesuring points. The sound pressure level of each 1/3 octave band was similar over the wide range of frequencies, demonstrating the sound pressure level of low frequency was high. Conclusions: Noise in Pediatric ICU exceeded the WHO standard for community noise in specific environments, which may cause the damage to the health of patients and medical staff. Frequency analysis showed noise level of the low frequency was especially high.
