Perceptions of public primary school teachers regarding noise-induced hearing loss in South Africa.
Katerina Ehlert
PMID 28397520WHAT IT FOUND
98% of Pretoria public primary teachers agreed loud noise can damage hearing, but 87% had no noise-induced hearing loss training and only 13% of schools had hearing screening programmes.
Key findings
0198% of teachers agreed that loud sounds or music can damage hearing, but 66% never provided hearing loss management information to parents.
0287% of teachers had not received prior training on NIHL or hearing conservation, and 91% said they would like to be trained.
03Only 13% of schools from all clusters had hearing screening programmes, and it was not clear if these programmes were sensitive to identifying NIHL.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only 59 of the 164 targeted schools took part, and only 219 of 258 returned questionnaires were usable. The paper states the low return rate means results cannot be generalised to teachers in Pretoria or other contexts. The study measured teacher perceptions and school programme presence, not learner hearing outcomes. It was unclear whether existing school hearing screening programmes could detect NIHL. The sample was limited to public primary school teachers of Grade 5-7 pupils in Pretoria.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these percentages as proof that a school hearing conservation programme works. The study measured teacher perceptions and school programme presence, not learner hearing outcomes, and the low response rate means the findings cannot be generalised.