Abstract

To assess the hearing conservation by the hearing protection devices in the field, 1,237 healthy female weavers of 16 to 24 year old were surveyed from April 1982 to January 1983. By reviewing the charts, their working durations, hearing threshold shift levels and whether wearing the ear plugs or not were checked. The hearing threshold levels were measured at 4,000 Hz by audiometry AA-30A, RION Japan. They were divided into two groups: an experimental group with ear plug and the control group without it. The threshold shift level above 40dB in controls was 44.6% in left and 40.9% in right ear and that in experimental group 8.0% in left and 6.6% in right ear. The distribution of threshold shift levels between control and experimental group was significantly different in both ears, but that between left and right ear not significantly different in both groups. The longer the working durations were, the more the proportion of high threshold shift levels was and the larger the differences in the proportion of above 40dB between both groups were.