Hearing Loss in Thai Naval Officers of Coastal Patrol Crafts

Abstract

This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the prevalence of hearing loss and its risk factors among Thai naval officers. The subjects consisted of 149 males who were asked to complete a questionnaire. Audiometric threshold testing was performed at the audiometric frequencies of 0.5, 1, 2, 4, and 8 kHz. The noise levels and the organic solvent concentrations in the working environment were measured on a common type of gun boat. The findings revealed that 39.6% of naval officers had hearing loss. The noise level (LAeq) was 100.6 dB in the engine room. The organic solvent concentrations were less than the occupational exposure limit for organic solvents. Multiple logistic regression analysis indicated 2 factors were significantly associated with hearing loss. They were age and service experience. The results suggest that the Thai navy should develop a hearing conservation program for naval officers on coastal patrol crafts.

Self-evaluation of Health State in Chinese Navy of Different Fleets

“…The muscle and skeletal system disease, affected up to 59% of the population, was the top one complained by the Navy despite of different eets or branches 12 . The age was one of the most important risk factors affecting physical health 13 . As Figure 1 shown, 25 and 40 were considered as the age boundaries stratifying service time into three stages: Stage I: ≤25 yrs; Stage II: 25 yrs and 40 yrs; Stage III: ≥40 yrs.…”

Perda auditiva associada à exposição ocupacional a solventes orgânicos: uma revisão sistemática

“…Thus, they concluded that the findings cannot be attributed to a combined effect of the exposures, and the effects of exposure to high levels of noise pressure were therefore predominant 38 .…”

“…Three studies attributed OHL found among individuals of co-exposure groups to the likely action of noise 25,38,41 . This conclusion can be questioned by observing limitations among the studies, which may have affected the quality of the analyses: absence of a control group with isolated exposure to noise 25,41 ; healthy worker effect (sole permanence at the workplace of workers with no impairment or health complaints) and inadequate case definition 25 ; or even differences between the exposure levels of agents (solvents within the allowed limit and noise considerably above the limit) 38 .…”

“…Thus, the current limits cannot guarantee the integrity of peripheral and central auditory pathways of that population 8 . Several studies have shown that workers submitted to low exposure to chemicals, even in the absence of noise, or noise within controlled limits, presented significant hearing alteration 17,22,24,27,30,34,[37][38][39] .…”

“…Most of the studies mentioned exposure to organic solvent mixtures at levels within local and/or international recommended tolerance limits 8,17,27,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] . In those studies, noise exposure levels varied according to compliance with the tolerance limit of 85 dB(A) for an eight-hour working day, recommended internationally.…”