The effect of hearing protection devices on speech intelligibility of Persian employees.

ABSTRACT:

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the effect of hearing protection devices (HPDs) on speech intelligibility in Persian work environments. Three current earmuffs and three earplugs and one of the prototypes of molded earplug were tested on 15 male subjects which were randomly selected. The noise reduction of HPDs was measured based on the Real Ear Attenuation at Threshold (REAT) method. Speech intelligibility during using HPDs was determined based on the speech discrimination score (SDS) at two signal to noise (S/N) ratios (0 and + 5). Data were analyzed using SPSS 22.

Results

The actual to nominal noise reduction rating values were from 47 to 84% for HPDs. At two S/N ratios, no significant differences were observed in speech intelligibility using HPDs (p > 0.05). At

SUBMITTER: Karami M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7659119 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature