Hearing assessment in dental practitioners and other academic professionals from an urban setting

Head & Face Medicine

Stephan Letzel¹  Dominik Wolf²  Lukas Scholz²  Vicky Ehlers²  Thomas G Wolf²  Angelika Callaway²  Brita Willershausen² 

[1] Institute of Occupational, Social and Environmental Medicine, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Kupferbergterrasse 17-19, 55116 Mainz, Germany;Department of Operative Dentistry, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Augustusplatz 2, 55131 Mainz, Germany

关键词: Urban setting;    Audiometric determination;    Dental practitioners;    Hearing assessment;   

Others  :  813561
DOI  :  10.1186/1746-160X-10-1

 received in 2013-10-31, accepted in 2014-01-08,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Introduction

Extended exposure to high-speed handpieces and other noise-intensive devices might put dentists at risk for possible hearing impairment. The aim of this study was to determine the hearing ability of dentists and other scientists for comparison.

Methods

After approval by the ethics committee, 115 subjects (dentists and other academic professionals as controls) of both genders were enrolled in the study. Exclusion criteria were colds, ear-blockages or abnormal hearing-thresholds. An audiometric determination (Oscilla USB audiometer, AudioConsole 3, Inmedico A/S, Denmark) was performed in the frequency range of 125Hz to 8 kHz for both ears. Anamnestic data and number of years in the profession were assessed using a questionnaire. Differences between groups were analyzed with the Mann–Whitney-U-test.

Results

Data from 53 dentists and 55 other academic professionals (69.4% male, 30.6% female) with a mean age of 51.7 ± 9.6 years and similar gender distributions in both groups were analyzed. The audiometric tests for the right and left air conduction showed that the hearing of dentists tended to be slightly more impaired than in the control subjects. For the frequencies 3 kHz and 4 kHz these differences were statistically significant for both ears. In contrast, no significant differences were found in this range for bone conduction.

Conclusions

Hearing impairment in dentists was slightly higher than in controls. Although other factors like environmental noise exposure were comparable for both groups, occupational exposure to high-speed handpieces and other noisy devices can be an additional burden for the hearing.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Willershausen et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

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