Determining the Relationship Between Noise Sensitivity Levels and Violence Tendencies of Nursing Students

PURPOSE: Exposure to noise has been related to aggressive behavior. As hospital noise may affect nursing students’ psycho-physiological health due to their inexperience, it ;1;is important to investigate possible violent tendencies among them. Since no similar research has been found in the literature, a study has been conducted to investigate the relationship between noise sensitivity and violence tendencies among nursing students. METHODS: The design of this study was cross-sectional. There were 260 nursing students (61% female) aged 18 to 24 years who filled out the Personal Information Form, Weinstein’s Noise Sensitivity scale, and Violence Tendency scale. We investigated the distribution of students’ noise sensitivity and violence tendencies scores in relation to age, gender, grade, and place of residence. Multiple regression analysis was performed with the noise sensitivity score and possible confounders as independent variables and the severity tendency score as a dependent variable. RESULTS: We found smoking to be significantly and positively associated with both noise sensitivity and violent tendencies (P < 0.001). Multiple regression analysis with smoking as a possible confounder revealed that a raise of 0.203 units on the violence tendencies scale may be expected per unit increase on the noise sensitivity scale (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Due to the limitations of our study, a possible relationship between nursing students’ noise sensitivity and violent tendencies is tentatively pointed out. More detailed studies are needed to test this assumption.