prominent locations and even outside hospital wards.
Certainly, hospitals should periodically provide nursing
staff with educational courses on noise control in order
to reduce the noise from “shouting of nursing staff”
and “rolling of trolley wheels.”
Survey on sound level among nursing staffs
Student’s t-test and ANOVA were used to determine
the relationship between each demographic
characteristic (independent variable) and each
dependent variable. Table 3 shows the results of
statistical analyses on the subjective perception of
ambient noise, as well as the effects of ambient noise
on emotion and physiology. Medical care staff working
on graveyard shift or have longer work experiences
displayed more sensitivity to noise. Nursing staff with
undergraduate degrees appeared less sensitive to noise
compared with those with master degrees or belowcollege
degrees. Staff members with below-college
degrees and nurses working in medical wards claim
that ambient noise have more significant effects on
their emotions while at work. In addition, medical care
staff working on graveyard shift or have more than
five years work experience expressed that their
emotions at work could be affected seriously by
ambient noise. Staff members who were Christians claim
that ambient noise has less effect on their physiology
while at work. Furthermore, medical care staff with more
than five years of work experience deemed that ambient
noise has more effect on their physiology at work.
Results in Table 4 (only the results showing significant
differences are listed) show that most of the staff
members with more than five years of work experience
expressed that noise from different sources inside the
wards was very high. However, staff members between
31 and 40 years old, married, worked the day shift, with
more than five-year work experience, or were head
nurses considered noise levels from different sources