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Description
The role of hospital acoustics and soundscapes has gained increasing attention, as creating restorative environments for patients and less stressful conditions for healthcare providers are closely linked to the quality of care. Despite this growing interest, the field remains underdeveloped; strong design guidelines and recommendations are still scarce. Intensive Care Units (ICUs), characterized by complex and dynamic sound sources, are among the most extensively studied healthcare environments. However, clinical studies investigating the relationship between the ICU acoustic environment and patient outcomes have yielded mixed, inconclusive findings. Conducting rigorous randomized controlled trials in these settings is inherently challenging due to patient vulnerability, ethical constraints, and the presence of numerous confounding variables. This raises some critical questions: To what extent do current acoustic indicators influence patient clinical outcomes? Are we measuring and analyzing the right variables and outcomes? This paper reviews the clinical literature, examines both acoustic metrics and patient outcomes, identifies key methodological limitations, and outlines future directions, including soundscape-based interventions, multisensory approaches, and more context-sensitive acoustic characterization.