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Beliefs and attitudes among Swedish workers regarding the risk of hearing loss.

Svensson EB; Morata TC; Nylen P; Krieg EF; Johnson AC

Int J Audiol 2004 Nov; 43(10):585-593

https://doi.org/10.1080/14992020400050075

20025923

The beliefs and attitudes regarding the risk of hearing loss and their impact on hearing protector use were investigated among Swedish workers. A questionnaire, developed by the US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), was used. The study objective was to assess workers' attitudes towards using hearing protection devices (HPDs) and to enhance the ability of workers to protect themselves from occupational hearing loss. Ninety-five per cent of the respondents were aware that loud noise could damage their hearing, 90% considered that a hearing loss would be a serious problem, and 85% believed that HPDs could protect their hearing. However, lower percentages of workers always used the HPDs when they were noise-exposed. Fifty-five per cent of the workers indicated that they could not hear warning signals when using HPDs, and 45% of the workers indicated that they considered HPDs to be uncomfortable. These issues must be addressed to make HPD use more effective.

Workers; Risk-analysis; Risk-factors; Hearing-loss; Questionnaires; Hearing-protection; Occupational-health; Occupational-exposure; Noise-induced-hearing-loss; Noise-exposure; Author Keywords: Hearing protectors; noise; comfort

Eve B. Svensson, Unit of Technical Audiology, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Bla vagen, hus 15, S-182 30 Danderyd, Sweden

IJANGS

20041101

Journal Article

eva.b.svensson@cns.ki.se

2005

10

1499-2027

DART

International Journal of Audiology

OH