The development of the noise sensitivity questionnaire

Abstract

The existing questionnaires for determining the noise sensitivity of individuals provide information only about global noise sensitivity, although empirical data suggest that measuring noise sensitivity for different situations in daily life might be more logical. Therefore, the "Noise-Sensitivity-Questionnaire" (NoiSeQ) was developed to measure global noise sensitivity as well as the sensitivity of five domains of daily life, namely, leisure, work, habitation, communication, and sleep. The assessment of the measurement characteristics was based on the Generalizability (G) theory. The results of the G-study (N=66) proved that a single application of the questionnaire is sufficient for determining an individual's noise sensitivity. Furthermore, the ratings are age and gender independent. The subsequently conducted Decision (D)-study (N=288) provides information on the reliability of NoiSeQ. If the questionnaire is used for measuring global noise sensitivity, the reliability (relative and absolute G-coefficient) reaches a value above 0.90. According to ISO 10075-3, the questionnaire satisfies the precision level 1 "accurate measurement" in this case. The G-coefficients for all the subscales exceed the lower limit 0.70, with the exception of subscale leisure, which did not prove satisfactory. However, this subscale can reach a reliability of more than 0.70 if additional items are included. The validity of the instrument was proven for the subscales habitation (N=72) and work (N=72). In both the studies, the participants were asked to rate the annoyance in the presence of several rail and traffic noise scenarios. The subjects were characterized as low and high noise sensitive according to their sensitivity values obtained from NoiSeQ. In conclusion, a significant difference in annoyance rates was observed between the low and high noise sensitive groups for both the subscales habitation and work. This data support the validity of NoiSeQ.

Impact of noise on self-rated job satisfaction and health in open-plan offices: a structural equation modelling approach

“…One of the possible reasons might be because the self-reported noise sensitivity measured using the single item question was limited to interpret a wide range of the context in which people are exposed to noise (Zimmer and Ellermeier, 1999). However, the multiple item scales developed by previous studies (Weinstein, 1978;Zimmer and Ellermeier, 1999;Schütte et al, 2007) focused on various reactions to noises that occur in daily life and did not include items describing reactions to noises at workplaces. Therefore, it is necessary to propose questions to assess workers' reaction to noises, which are heard at workplaces in the future.…”

“…All the study assessed noise sensitivity using a single item question. Another way to measure the noise sensitivity is using the multiple item scale (Weinstein, 1978;Zimmer and Ellermeier, 1999;Schütte et al, 2007). Zimmer and Ellermeier (1999) reported that multiple item scales produced more reliable and valid results rather than single item scales.…”

“…Ryu and Jeon (2011) also compared 20 multiple questions with a single question, and found that the sensitivity scores obtained from the multiple questions had a more symmetrical distribution than the scores by single item. Recently developed the Noise-Sensitivity-Questionnaire (NoiSeQ) consists of 35 items and it was aimed to measure global noise sensitivity as the sensitivity of five domains of daily life such as leisure, work, habitation, communication, and sleep (Schütte et al, 2007). Griefahn (2008) shortened the NoiSeQ to 12 items for thee subscales (sleep, habitation, and work) and it was applied to a recent questionnaire survey in open space offices (Pierrette et al, 2014).…”

Annoyance, detection and recognition of wind turbine noise

“…The latter was assessed using a 10-question Dutch adaptation of the Weinstein's noise-sensitivity scale (Weinstein, 1978) used previously in large-scale Flemish quality-of-life studies. More 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 17 recently, noise sensitivity questionnaires have been developed assessing noise sensitivity in different daily-life situations (leisure, work, habitation, communication, and sleep) (Schutte et al, 2007). However, the assessment of noise sensitivity based on the questions of Weinstein is still widely used, allowing comparison to other work, and has the advantage of keeping the number of questions limited.…”

Development of a model to predict the likelihood of complaints due to assorted tone-in-noise combinations

“…Noise sensitivity was also measured by using the reduced version of the Noise-Sensitivity-Questionnaire (NoiSeQ), which consists of 13 question items (Schutte et al, 2007); the scores confirmed that the sample is a good approximation of the general population by meeting the normality assumption with a non-significant Shapiro-Wilke test result (p ¼ 0.82). Figure 1 shows a histogram of the NoiSeQ values for the 20 participants.…”