Impact of background music on the performance of laparoscopy teams

Background: Acoustic conditions in the operating room have different impacts on surgeon's performance. Their effects on the performance of surgical teams are not well documented. We investigated if laparoscopic teams operating under pleasant acoustic conditions would perform better than under noisy conditions.

Methods: We recruited 114 surgical residents and built 57 two-person teams. Each team was required to perform two laparoscopic tasks (object transportation and collaborative suturing) on a simulation training box under music, neutral, and noisy acoustic conditions. Data were extracted from video recordings of each performance for analysis. Task performance was measured by the duration of time to complete a task and the total number of errors, and objective performance scores. The measures were compared over the three acoustic conditions.

Results: A music environment elicited higher performance scores than a noisy environment for both the object transportation (performance score: 66.3 ± 8.6 vs. 57.6 ± 11.2; p < 0.001) and collaborative suturing tasks (78.6 ± 5.4 vs. 67.2 ± 11.1; p < 0.001). Task times in the music and noisy environments was subtracted to produce a music-noisy difference time. Pearson correlation coefficient analysis showed a significant negative relationship between the team experience score and the music-noisy difference time on the object transportation (r = - 0.246, p = 0.046) and collaborative suturing tasks (r = - 0.248, p = 0.044).

Conclusions: As to individuals, music enhances the performance of a laparoscopy team while a noisy environment worsens performance. The negative correlation between team experience and music-noisy difference time suggests that laparoscopy teams composed of experienced surgeons are less likely affected by an acoustic distraction than the noisy teams. Team resistance to acoustic distraction may lead to a new way for assessing team skills.