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The Effect of Earmuffs on Physiological Parameters in Preterm Infants: A Systematic Review
1Department of Nursing, Kilis 7 Aralık University Yusuf Serefoglu Faculty of Health Sciences, Kilis, Turkey.
Insights
The impact of earmuffs on preterm infants
Area of Science:
- Neonatal care
- Pediatric audiology
- Environmental health in hospitals
Background:
- Neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) expose preterm infants to high noise levels.
- Noise-induced stress negatively impacts preterm infants' physiological stability and development.
- Potential interventions like earmuffs require further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review the existing literature on the effects of earmuffs on physiological parameters in preterm infants.
- To assess the current understanding of earmuff efficacy in mitigating noise-related stress in neonates.
Main Methods:
- Systematic literature search of peer-reviewed publications from 2012-2018.
- Analysis of studies using VOSviewer for bibliometric data.
- Inclusion of 7 full-text accessible studies meeting specific search criteria (earmuffs, noise, nursing, preterm).
Main Results:
- The current body of evidence on earmuff effects in preterm infants is limited.
- Physiological impacts of earmuffs on preterm infants are not clearly understood.
- Efficacy of earmuffs in reducing stress and promoting stability remains uncertain.
Conclusions:
- More research with larger sample sizes is needed to validate findings.
- The use of earmuffs for stress reduction in preterm infants requires further investigation.
- Clearer evidence is necessary to establish earmuffs as a standard intervention.
Abstract:
Noise may cause stress responses such as apnea, hypoxemia, changes in oxygen saturation and augmented oxygen consumption secondary to elevated heart and respiratory rates. Moreover, stress results in increased intracranial pressure, abnormal sleep patterns, hearing impairment, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia, retinopathy of prematurity, intraventricular hemorrhage, periventricular leukomalacia, retardate development and alterations in the neuroendocrine system. Herein, this study aimed to discuss the effects of earmuffs on physiological parameters in preterm infants. The relevant and available peer-reviewed publications from 2012 to 2018 from various databases were analyzed. For the assessment of the studies, the full-text accessible studies were included for analysis. The retrieved documents were analyzed using VOSviewer regarding the geographical distributions of the documents with their numbers and citations, keywords proposed by the researchers. All records with the term "earmuffs OR earmuff" in the "article title, abstract, keywords" were retrieved from different databases. Accordingly, 396 documents containing the word "earmuffs OR earmuff" were recorded. The search was then restricted for publications that contain the words "noise AND nursing AND preterm" in the title and abstracts (TITLE-ABS-KEY (earmuffs OR earmuff)) AND (noise AND nursing AND preterm) (Scopus=390; Web of Science=1, Medline=2; Cochrane=1; Embase=1= Pubmed=1=n=396). After inclusion and exclusion criteria, 7 documents were recorded and then evaluated for the present study. As a conclusion, the effects of earmuffs on physiological parameters of preterm infants have not been clearly understood and reported yet. Along with the present documents, it is not clear that the use of earmuffs reduces stress and provides physiological stability in preterm infants born between approximately 28-32 weeks. The studies with a larger sample size are needed for validation of information reported in the articles analyzed herein.
