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The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine 22 (1): 17-23 (2009)
DOI: 10.3122/jabfm.2009.01.080033
© 2009 American Board of Family Medicine
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Original Research

Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow: An Assessment of Portable Entertainment Player Use and Hearing Acuity in a Community Sample

Samit Shah, BS, Bharat Gopal, MD, Janet Reis, PhD and Michael Novak, MD

Medical Scholars Program, College of Medicine (SS)
Department of Family Medicine (BG, JR)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (SS)
Department of Otolaryngology, Carle Clinic Association, Urbana, IL (MN)

Correspondence: Corresponding author: Bharat Gopal, MD, Carle Family Medicine Residency, 602 West University Avenue, Urbana, Illinois 61822 (E-mail: bharat.gopal{at}carle.com)

Background: Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is a common but preventable disability. The purpose of this study was to assess the understanding of NIHL in a community sample in the context of exposure to portable music players, including MP3 players, and personal hearing acuity as tested with the Welch Allyn Audioscope 3.

Methods: A cross-sectional convenience sample of 94 adults (18 to 65 years old) at a university recreation center completed an analysis of personal use of portable digital music players (MP3 players), concerns about hearing loss, and a 3-dB-level hearing test at 4 levels of speech frequency in a low ambient noise setting.

Results: The majority of participants (85%) were concerned about hearing loss, willing to protect their hearing with lower volume (77%), had little measurable hearing loss but were exposed to longer and louder periods of noise than other national samples, and mistakenly felt that NIHL is a medically reversible condition. Many (40%) also wanted their family medicine physician to be more concerned about their hearing.

Conclusions: Family medicine physicians are in a key position to provide basic information on the preventability and negative consequences of NIHL, as well as to identify and refer patients with identified hearing loss.


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