Abstract
This study evaluated how patients perceived the voice of nurses wearing a face mask by comparing when nurses are wearing a face mask and not wearing a face mask. The participants were 12 female nursing students, divided into 11 playing the nurse’s role and 1 playing the patient’s role. The nurse’s voice was recorded in a scene where the patient’s temperature was being taken, and the sound quality and sound pressure level was measured using Praat acoustic analysis software. The patient role evaluated the ease of understanding the nurse’s utterances. Results showed no difference in voice quality when the nurse was wearing a mask when talking to the patient about measuring the patient’s temperature, but when the nurse took the patient’s pulse while taking the patient’s body temperature, the nurse’s voice when wearing a mask was perceived to be difficult to hear, such as a hoarse voice or husky voice (P=0.076). When the speech range was at 6,000-8,000 Hz, for 7/11 nurses (63%) the sound pressure level was higher and the nurse’s voice was louder when a mask was not worn. When the nurse was wearing a mask, the patient perceived that “the voice was muffled” and “the voice was smaller” .
These results indicated a nurse ’s voice when wearing a mask may be difficult to hear when talking is accompanied by other actions or talking is conducted at a high pitch range.
