On November 21st Lotta Johansson of Gothenburg university defended her doctoral thesis at the Ph.D. disputation held at Academic. The title of the thesis is “Being critically ill and surrounded by sound and noise. Patient experiences, staff awareness and future challenges“.
The aim of the thesis was to show how critically ill patients experience sound and noise. As well as looking at what the staff can do to improve the sound environment. The study shows that critically ill patients are exposed to high levels of intermittent noise and that they actually remember many of them from their stay. Some sounds were described as positive, while some of them turned out to cause helplessness and fear. The fact that sounds come suddenly and are unpredictable is highlighted, as well as the need for staff to be more aware.
sounds come suddenly and are unpredictable
The sound environment in the ICU patient room is known to be poor and demanding. However, little is currently known about how patients recall and experience the sounds that surround them. Furthermore, staff knowledge of the field and their suggestions for improvements are of interest. Therefore, the overall aim of this thesis was to illuminate how critically ill patients experience being surrounded by sound and noise. In addition, its aim was to explore ICU staff’s knowledge and suggestions for improvements regarding the sound environment and to investigate the feasibility of a complex sound intervention in an intensive care context. A multiple-method approach was used in this thesis
The abstract and full paper version of the thesis can be found using this link: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/36757
Watch the video interview with Lotta about the impact of noise on ICU delirium from Internoise 2010: http://youtu.be/RwCzXgYnaG0?list=UU0fBF6zzu3YbU6PBV5sqXcA
