Assessment of Medical-Surgical Patients' Perception of Hospital Noises and Reported Ability to Rest.

Objectives: The purpose was to determine if an enhanced privacy curtain (1) impacted ability to rest while hospitalized in the acute care setting and (2) improved patient satisfaction associated with environmental noise.

Methods: The project evaluated a privacy curtain designed to increase speech privacy and intelligibility and reduce reverberation time (echo). The curtain was similar to the existing privacy curtain with 2 exceptions: the curtain panel had pocket inserts that absorbed sound, and curtain panels could be zipped together to reduce sound transmission through gaps.