Staff and patient perceptions of noise in SA hospitals - a pilot study : short report
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Noise in hospitals can negatively affect users. Guideline noise levels for hospital wards are stipulated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and a South African National Standard (SANS). Studies show that few hospitals comply with the guidelines but limited research in South Africa means that conditions in local hospitals are unknown. The objective of this pilot study was to compare measured noise levels with guideline and perceived noise levels in general hospital wards. Methods: Measured and perceived noise levels were assessed, using data obtained from sound level meter readings and questionnaires, respectively, in four hospitals. Results: None of the hospitals complied with the guidelines, with an average Leq, 24hr of 53.4 dBA. Yet, most users did not perceive the environment to be excessively noisy. At two of the hospitals it emerged that noise is more disturbing for staff than for patients. Conclusions: The results did not yield the predicted perceptions of noise in hospitals. Further research on a larger sample is required to confirm findings, particularly pertaining to the difference in perceptions between staff and patients.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".