Noise exposure burden and hearing protection compliance among Saudi military personnel: A cross-sectional study.
Ahmad A Alanazi, AlHanouf N Alhathal, Abrar M Almutairi and 2 others
Most Saudi military personnel know loud noise damages hearing, yet half skip hearing protection.
Nearly one in five reports hearing loss, and three in four have never had a hearing test.
Key findings
1130 participants (50.8%) did not use hearing protection during loud noise exposure, while 71.1% and 78.9% were aware that loud noise causes hearing loss and tinnitus respectively.
2Hearing protection use was significantly associated with awareness of noise risks (p = 0.01), and current shooting participation was significantly associated with self-reported hearing loss (p = 0.01).
376.6% of participants had never had their hearing tested.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only 256 participants completed the survey, below the target of 384, despite a one-year recruitment window. 85.2% of participants were from Riyadh, so the findings do not represent the full range of military regions in Saudi Arabia. Hearing loss is self-reported; no audiometry or objective hearing test was performed. No control for confounders such as age-related hearing loss or medical conditions like diabetes. Social media distribution introduced self-selection bias and limited control over who actually completed the survey. The questionnaire did not ask what type of hearing protection participants used, so the quality and adequacy of protection is unknown. Cross-sectional design means the associations found (for example, between shooting and hearing loss) cannot establish cause and effect.
Declared interests
The authors declared no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the significant associations as proof that shooting causes hearing loss or that hearing protection prevents it. This is a cross-sectional survey in which hearing loss is self-reported, no audiometry was performed, and there is no control for age-related hearing loss or other medical conditions. The direction of the relationship between awareness and hearing protection use cannot be determined from this design.
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