Exploring the pediatric intensive care unit soundscape from health professionals' perspective

This paper aims to conduct qualitative research that explores health professionals' soundscape perceptions in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). The building is close to the city airport, university campus, and city center in Trabzon, Turkey. Therefore, besides its alarm-driven auditory environment, there are several different sound sources that people are exposed to. PICU has single-bed units with a maximum capacity of seven ICU beds for children (age < 18 years). This paper uses the Grounded Theory (GT) to explore ICU health professionals' perceptions of built and auditory environments, categorize ICU soundscapes, and generate a conceptual framework. Following the ISO/TS 12913-2/3, semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed to discover the subjective responses. Results showed that the most dominant sound sources are human-based and technology-based sounds. Similar to previous soundscape studies, the context was found as the framework's main category. Health professionals responded neutrally to alarms and negatively to irrelevant sounds that cause concentration loss and disturbance.