The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees

BMC Research Notes

Mohsen Aliabadi¹  Rostam Golmohammadi²  Morteza Hamidi Nahrani³  Mina Karami⁴ 

[1]Center of Excellence for Occupational Health, Occupational Health and Safety Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

[2]Center of Excellence for Occupational Health, Research Center for Health Sciences, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

[3]Department of Audiology, School of Rehabilitation, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

[4]Department of Ergonomics, School of Public Health, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

关键词: Noise reduction rating;    Speech intelligibility;    Hearing protection devices;    Work environment;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13104-020-05374-x

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

ObjectiveThis study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and + 5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.ResultsThe actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47 to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p > 0.05). At S/N ratio = 0, the speech intelligibility descriptively has been only improved by using common earmuffs up to 9.07%. There was a significant difference up to 21.27% in speech intelligibility for proposed molded earplugs at S/N ratio = 0 (p < 0.05). Increasing the HPDs' noise attenuation values led to an increase in speech interference (p < 0.05). The HPDs with the minimum required noise attenuation while maintaining acceptable speech intelligibility should be worn by employees exposed to medium noise levels.

【 授权许可】

CC BY