The aim was to determine how the perceived work environment, especially acoustic environment, and its effects differed in private office rooms and in open-plan offices. The subjects consisted of 31 workers who moved from private office rooms to open-plan offices and who answered the questionnaire before and after the relocation. Private office rooms were occupied only by one person while open-plan offices were occupied by more than 20 persons. Room acoustical descriptors showed a significant reduction in speech privacy after relocation. The noise level averaged over the whole work day did not change but the variability of noise level reduced significantly. Negative effects of acoustic environment increased significantly, including increased distraction, reduced privacy, increased concentration difficulties and increased use of coping strategies. Self-rated loss of work performance because of noise doubled. Cognitively demanding work and phone conversations were most distracted by noise. The benefits that are often associated with open-plan offices did not appear: cooperation became less pleasant and direct and information flow did not change. Nowadays, most office workers, independent of job type, are located in open-plan offices without the individual needs of privacy, concentration and interaction being analysed. This intervention study consisted of professional workers. Their work tasks mainly required individual efforts, and interaction between other workers was not of primary concern, although necessary. The results suggest that the open-plan office is not recommended for professional workers. Similar intervention studies should also be made for other job types.

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The aim of this study was to determine the acoustic conditions of two typical Finnish wards. The methods included various acoustical measurements and questionnaires for patients (N=58) and nurses (N=27). The average sound pressure levels were within 49 and 58 dBA in the corridors, office and patient rooms. Personal noise exposure levels among nurses were below 70 dBA. The noise was mainly caused by people. Building acoustic measurements showed reasonable agreement with national directions. Indoor environment was not a problem for most patients. Some disturbance from thermal conditions, dry air and noise was experienced. Other patients' snore and groans bothered some patients. Night-time sleep was disturbed most by anxiety, pain, noise, thermal conditions and an uncomfortable bed. Number of occupants in the room was associated with environmental complaints. Nurses were more bothered by environmental factors than patients, giving highest annoyance ratings to thermal conditions, air quality and noise. Nurses experienced stress and difficulties in concentration due to noise. Sounds of phones ringing were experienced as particularly detrimental. Acoustic design guidelines developed for open plan offices could be considered in ward offices. Lack of privacy was the most obvious problem in both staff and patient evaluations.