CONSTRUCTION AND EVALUATION OF A NOISE SE NSITIVITY QUESTIONNAIRE

The strength of annoyance reactions to environmental noise differs con siderably across individuals. The concept of noise sensitivity has oft en been invoked to explain this finding. Sensitivity to noise is seen as a stable personality trait covering attitudes towards a wide range of noises. In order to measure individual noise sensitivity, a questio nnaire was constructed, and its psychometric properties were assessed. internal consistency and retest reliability of the final 52-item vers ion were very high (alpha=0.92 and r(alpha)=0.91, respectively). Const ruct validity was evaluated by correlating noise sensitivity scores wi th other questionnaire measures of depression, stress, anger, anxiety, and noise sensitivity. The results suggest that the present German-la nguage noise-sensitivity questionnaire does very well in meeting estab lished criteria for test evaluation, and may be applied both in labora tory and field settings.