Health Effects Associated with the Usage of Personal Audio Devices and Their Perceived Health Impact in Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction Exposure to recreational sound is an emerging public health problem. Especially in young adults the threat arises from extended and extreme exposure to loud music and other forms of recreational sound including music they listen to through personal audio devices (PAD). The study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of health effects, to find out the perceived health effects and to determine the factors associated with the usage of PAD. Materials and Methods We conducted a cross sectional study in 200 adults using google forms, snowball sampling method was used. We gathered information regarding socio-demographic profile, volume levels and perceived health effect. Data was extracted to MS Excel and SPSS 26 was used for analysis. Descriptive, Chi-square test and Krushkal Wallis test was used. The significance level was considered at p?0.05. Results Out of the 200 adult participants, males constituted 58.5%, graduated graduates around 78.5%, employed 49% and resided in urban areas 79%. Prevalence of health effects was 148(74%). There was significant association between volume levels, hours of usage and health effects on usage of PAD in subjects p?0.05. It was also found that there was significant difference between marital status H=10.373, p?0.05 employment H=8.76, p?0.05 and tinnitus H=7.626, p?0.05 across different median levels. Conclusions Prevalence on health effect on usage of PAD was high. Hence there is a need to increase awareness about the harmful usage of PAD among all the age groups.

Keywords

• Health effect, Personal Audio Devices, Usage