Effect of Duration of Exposure to Personal Listening Devices on Hearing Thresholds in Young Adults

To analyze the effect of duration of use of personal listening devices on hearing impairment in young adults. Hospital-based cross-sectional study. Department of ENT, NEIGRIHMS, India. 50 consenting undergraduate medical students. This study was conducted over a period of 2 months. After eliminating all previous and current otological pathologies, Pure Tone Audiometry was conducted on each subject for both air and bone conducted sound stimuli. The subjects were divided into different groups based on duration of exposure. The audiograms were then closely evaluated for the existence of an association between the duration of personal listening devices (PLD) use and hearing impairment. The data was then evaluated by Chi Square test and Mann–Whitney U test using GraphPad InStat 3 software for the existence of an association between the duration of PLD usage and hearing impairment. The hearing thresholds varied only in isolated frequencies irrespective of the categorisation of duration of exposure to PLDs. There was no significant association between duration of use of personal listening devices and hearing impairment in young adults.