Hearing assessment in dental practitioners and other academic professionals from an urban setting.
BACKGROUND
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 125 Hz 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.
Department of Operative Dentistry, University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Augustusplatz 2, 55131 Mainz, Germany. willersh@uni-mainz.de.
Brita
B
Willershausen
Angelika
A
Callaway
Thomas G
TG
Wolf
Vicky
V
Ehlers
Lukas
L
Scholz
Dominik
D
Wolf
Stephan
S
Letzel
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001299:Audiometry; D003797:Dental Staff; D003815:Dentists; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009623:Noise, Occupational; D009784:Occupational Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology*; D014505:Urban Population