The effect of control on patients' perceptions of noise in an intensive coronary care unit

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain if perception of control was effective in reducing noise annoyance in the Intensive Coronary Care Unit (ICCU) setting. The sample consisted of 30 adult subjects admitted to a 16"!"'bed ICCU in a rural 275 b.ed hospital in the southeastern United States. A Noise Annoyance Questionnaire (NAQ) was the instrument utilized to measure noise annoyance. The randomized post-test only experimental design tested the following hypothesis: Patients who are issued earplugs as a means' to control noise will score lower on a scale measuring annoyance to noise in the ICCU than will patients who are not issued earplugs. Subjects were randomly assigned to either the experimental group (n=15) or control group (n=15). Experimental group participants were issued earplugs with instructions for their use and applicati.on. At 24 hours post-ICCU discharge, all patients were asked to complete the NAQ. The t-test for independent means revealed no significant difference (R =.06). in the mean noise annoyance scores between the groups; therefore, the hypothesis was rejected. This finding indicates that in this study, the total noise annoyance scores from participants receiving earplugs did not differ from the scores of participants who did not receive earplugs. S.ince the nursing intervention (offering earplugs to ICCU patients) was not effective in this sample of patients, other nursing interventions need to be explored as a measures of control of noise annoyance.