Purpose:
Hearing loss is a common issue among adults and it is the third cause of global years lived with disability (YLDs). The purpose of this study was to investigate the hearing thresholds of specialists at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences medical staff in 2022.
Methods:
This study was conducted cross-sectionally using Poisson random sampling method. All subjects (n= 1111) were evaluated under the same condition. The evaluations were included case history, otoscopy examinations, pure tone audiometry and tympanometry. By these evaluations, the type, degree and configuration of hearing loss were determined.
Results:
The age of the subjects was 44.03 ± 6.74 years old. The 460 subjects (41.4%) were female. Out of a total of 1,111 people, 310 (27.9%) had bilateral sensorineural hearing loss, while 233 (20.9%) experienced unilateral sensorineural hearing loss. The degree of hearing loss in most cases was mild. About 8% of subjects had conductive hearing loss. Numerous cases of Age Related Hearing Loss (ARHL) and Noise Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) were observed. More than 50% of subject older than 50 years had ARHL.
Conclusion:
Considering the preventable nature of ARHL and specially NIHL, the high number of these cases may indicate the lack of health literacy or neglect of the hearing loss effects in our subjects.