Effects of Noises and Music on Nurses’ Mental Workload and Situation Awareness in the Operating Room

Abstract

Noise exposure is a common operating room (OR) phenomenon. Music is often regarded as a useful tool to relieve stress and energize lagging attention levels. Surgical teams, therefore, often listen to music when they conduct operations. However, these noises may impact surgical outcomes and patient safety. Focusing on nurses, this study aims to determine the association of sound volumes, state anxiety, mental workload and situation awareness when nurses assist in the operating room. A total of 40 circulating nurses and 40 anesthesia nurses participated in the study. The experiment was designed by 4 between subjects (without music, songs with Chinese lyrics, FM pop music broadcasting and Mozart’s music) and 2 within subjects (55–60 dB and 75–80 dB), and adopted a subjective rating technique to investigate the participants’ state anxiety, mental workload and situation awareness during the surgical process. The results showed that the participants maintained a high level of situation awareness. The degrees of mental workload revealed statistically significant differences when specific tasks, especially surgical time-out, needed to be carried out. Sound volume was reported as a major factor that caused great state anxiety among circulating nurses. By listening to Mozart music, the participants significantly decreased their mental workload, increased situation awareness and relieved stress to achieve positive reaction. In addition, mental workload was positively correlated to state anxiety among circulating nurses. Finally, some implications and further suggestions are provided. Music volume should be controlled since it significantly affects mental workload and state anxiety. Noises produced from medical equipment and instruments need to be decreased; maintaining sound volume less than 60 dB is recommended. Moreover, developing a low volume music environment during an operation will be beneficial to both occupational health and patient care outcomes.