Weary of noisy nights, patients are too quick to leave hospital

HOSPITAL patients are discharging themselves early because wards are too noisy at night, new research has found.

According to the study led by King’s College London, noise pollution in hospitals regularly exceeds international recommendations.

The report found one in 10 patients are bothered by noise at night, with growing numbers requesting to be discharged early.

Equipment and technology are partly to blame with alarms, televisions, trolleys and conversations cited among common annoyances.

In the editorial, published in the BMJ, researchers warned that noise can impact patients’ ability to rest, heal and recover. Exposure to the annoyance has been linked to hospital-induced stress, pain sensitivity, high blood pressure and poor mental health.

Dr Andreas Xyrichis told The Daily Telegraph: “The noise levels can become so bad, patients are discharging themselves when they still need treatment. This is troubling because the people who leave early are more likely to need to come back later down the line. Even in intensive care units, noise levels the equivalent of loud music in headphones have been measured.”

Patients who were in hospital for several nights reported feeling trapped and stressed, leading to requests for premature discharge and heightened risk of trauma and readmission.

Dr Xyrichis said more needed to be done to tackle the problem as it was only going to worsen.

He told The Telegraph: “Hospital noise has always been a problem but it is getting worse and it still isn’t being treated as a priority. Manufacturers need to provide less noisy equipment and hospitals also need to treat it as a serious problem.”