Study of Sound Environment Influenced by the Crowd in Waiting Areas in General Hospitals

In this study, the crowd has been investigated and analyzed in waiting areas in large general hospitals in China in order to find the rules the variations of sound environment with the change of crowd. The field investigation, questionnaire, field-testing and computer simulation have been adopted. The results show that: the social/demographic characteristics of staff and patients are not significantly related to the satisfaction evaluation of sound environment; there is a significant correlation between the population density and LAeq of the background noise in waiting areas; when population density is 0, the LAeq of background noise is not 0 in waiting areas; the loudspeaker should be set in the waiting areas. Loudspeaker arrangements should be integrated into the ceiling lamp or construct facilities along the depth direction of the layout, and the two adjacent speakers recommended distance should be controlled at about 4 m. If the population density is controlled in the reasonable range, and sound absorption, noise reduction processing and electronic queuing system are adopted, sound environment of waiting areas will be built with noise interference relatively small in different population densities.