Hearing threshold of Korean adolescents associated with the use of personal music players.
OBJECTIVE
Hearing loss can lead to a number of disabilities and can reduce quality of life. Noise-induced hearing losses have become more common among adolescents due to increased exposure to personal music players. We, therefore, investigated the use of personal music player among Korean adolescents and the relationship between hearing threshold and usage pattern of portable music players.


METHODS
A total of 490 adolescents were interviewed personally regarding their use of portable music players, including the time and type of player and the type of headphone used. Pure tone audiometry was performed in each subject.


RESULTS
Of the 490 subjects, 462 (94.3%) used personal music players and most of them have used the personal music player for 1-3 hours per day during 1-3 years. The most common type of portable music player was the MP3 player, and the most common type of headphone was the earphone (insert type). Significant elevations of hearing threshold were observed in males, in adolescents who had used portable music players for over 5 years, for those over 15 years in cumulative period and in those who had used earphones.


CONCLUSIONS
Portable music players can have a deleterious effect on hearing threshold in adolescents. To preserve hearing, adolescents should avoid using portable music players for long periods of time and should avoid using earphones.
Kim
Myung Gu
MG
Department of Otolaryngology, Masan Samsung Hospital, School of Medicine, Sungkyunkwan University, Masan, Korea.
Hong
Seok Min
SM
Shim
Hyun Joon
HJ
Kim
Young Doe
YD
Cha
Chang Il
CI
Yeo
Seung Geun
SG
D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D001296:Audiovisual Aids; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009146:Music; D017678:Sex Distribution