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Observational Study
. 2016 May 19;11(5):e0155357.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155357. eCollection 2016.

Noise Annoyance Is Associated with Depression and Anxiety in the General Population- The Contribution of Aircraft Noise

Manfred E Beutel  1 , Claus Jünger  2 , Eva M Klein  1 , Philipp Wild  3   4   5 , Karl Lackner  6 , Maria Blettner  7 , Harald Binder  7 , Matthias Michal  1 , Jörg Wiltink  1 , Elmar Brähler  1 , Thomas Münzel  2
Affiliations
Observational Study

Noise Annoyance Is Associated with Depression and Anxiety in the General Population- The Contribution of Aircraft Noise

Manfred E Beutel et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Background: While noise annoyance has become recognized as an important environmental stressor, its association to mental health has hardly been studied. We therefore determined the association of noise annoyance to anxiety and depression and explored the contribution of diverse environmental sources to overall noise annoyance.

Patients and methods: We investigated cross-sectional data of n = 15.010 participants of the Gutenberg Health Study (GHS), a population-based, prospective, single-center cohort study in Mid-Germany (age 35 to 74 years). Noise annoyance was assessed separately for road traffic, aircraft, railways, industrial, neighborhood indoor and outdoor noise ("during the day"; "in your sleep") on 5-point scales ("not at all" to "extremely"); depression and anxiety were assessed by the PHQ-9, resp. GAD-2.

Results: Depression and anxiety increased with the degree of overall noise annoyance. Compared to no annoyance, prevalence ratios for depression, respectively anxiety increased from moderate (PR depression 1.20; 95%CI 1.00 to 1.45; PR anxiety 1.42; 95% CI 1.15 to 1.74) to extreme annoyance (PR depression 1.97; 95%CI 1.62 to 2.39; PR anxiety 2.14; 95% CI 1.71 to 2.67). Compared to other sources, aircraft noise annoyance was prominent affecting almost 60% of the population.

Interpretation: Strong noise annoyance was associated with a two-fold higher prevalence of depression and anxiety in the general population. While we could not relate annoyance due to aircraft noise directly to depression and anxiety, we established that it was the major source of annoyance in the sample, exceeding the other sources in those strongly annoyed. Prospective follow-up data will address the issue of causal relationships between annoyance and mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors received funding (unrestricted grant) from commercial sources Boehringer Ingelheim and PHILIPS Medical Systems. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Association between noise annoyance, depression and anxiety.
Note. Multiple generalized linear models with a binominal distribution and a log link function adjusted for sex, age and socioeconomic status were used.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Degrees of overall annoyance according to different sources of noise.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Sources of extreme annoyance (N = 1530).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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