Children’s Wards Too Noisy At Night

Children’s Hospital Wards Too Noisy To Sleep:

You might think a lack of sleep on a children’s hospital ward is par for the course. Worry, beeping equipment, hard chair beds and monitoring patients all adds up to a broken night’s sleep. After all, it’s not a hotel and a review on Trip Adviser is hardly necessary.

But research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood, actually examined the quality of sleep children and their parents got whilst staying in hospital.

The verdict was that the level of noise on children’s medical wards at night exceeded the maximum limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) of 30 decibels peaking at 45 decibels.

And, the noise was ‘significantly’ louder than our bedrooms at home – though the subjects who participated clearly didn’t live in central Bristol.

According to the research, the background noise on children’s wards means that children staying there are getting shorter and poorer quality sleep. In fact, it’s more than an hour’s sleep less than at home.

A total of 46 children – with an average age of nine years – with 16 of their mothers took part in the study by monitoring their sleep-wake patterns on an actigraph both at home and in hospital.

Around two thirds of the children participating had been admitted to hospital with a sudden or serious condition.

Results showed that the average sound level recorded on the hospital ward was 48.24 decibels and 50.35 decibels for beds in open bays. The noise levels in children’s bedrooms was found to be 34.7 decibels.

Children lost an average of 63 minutes each night, with their mothers loosing 73 minutes.

Sleep quality was also said to be poorer in hospitals because the brain has evolved to be ‘highly attuned’ to sound and noise to deal with possible threats.

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