Knowledge Bank

Surgical masks and blood shields worn by anesthesiologists and surgeons in hospital operating rooms may negatively impact speech communication and put patients at risk. Young adult subjects listened to sentences from the Speech Perception in Noise test, SPIN, (Bilger et al., 1984) recorded by a male and female talker. All eight SPIN lists were recorded under three different speaking conditions: 1) speaking normally without any obstruction, 2) wearing a typical surgical mask, and 3) wearing a surgical mask with an attached blood shield. Multi-talker babble was mixed with the SPIN sentences at the signal-to-noise ratio of 0 dB to simulate conversation in noisy environments. Speaker gender and recording conditions were counterbalanced across listeners to control for learning and fatigue effects. SPIN test scores for each of the three types of recordings and both talker genders were compared in order to determine the degradation that blood-shields and surgical masks may have on speech communication in the operating room. The data suggests that surgical masks, in particular the blood shields, negatively impact speech communication. Percent correct is the highest for the unmasked condition, followed by the masked condition, and poorest in the mask and attached blood shield condition.