초록
This study was conducted to investigate hypoacusis due to workplace noise among dental technicians. Pure tone audiometry, impedance audiometry and heart rate variability were measured for 60 dental technicians and office workers in D city from July to November 2013, and a survey on the effects of noise was conducted. SPSS 19.0 was used for statistical analysis. In the result for threshold of pure tone audiometry, the average hearing threshold of left ears in the air conduction (AC) test showed a statistically significant decrease (P=0.019) among dental technicians, who are frequently exposed to workplace noise. The hearing threshold in the AC test for each frequency was significantly different between the two groups at 125 Hz (P=0.012) in right ears and at 1 kHz (P=0.022), 2 kHz (P=0.040), and 8 kHz (P=0.018) in left ears. Dental technicians who had worked for 16 years or longer had a significantly higher incidence of hypoacusis in the right ear (P=0.030) and in the left ear (P=0.010). In impedance audiometry showed a tympanometry result of type A in both the dental technician group and the office worker group.