The Impact of Diving on Hearing of Industrial and Recreational Divers

Abstract

Objectives:

This study aims to determine the negative effects of diving on hearing and to compare the hearing levels of the industrial divers to the recreational ones.

Methods:

The study was conducted among industrial divers (ID) and recreational divers (RD) between June 2012 and November 2013. A total of 30 industrial divers and 30 recreational divers were recruited. The participants received a self-structured questionnaire, detailed otolaryngologic, otologic, and radiologic examinations. The continuous variables were compared using the Student t test or analysis of variance.

Results:

The mean age of the ID group was 28.3 ± 4.4 and RD was 32.7 ± 5.2. Hearing levels above 25 dB were considered as normal. No significant hearing loss was obtained in the ID group while the RD group had mild to moderate hearing loss (P < .001). Divers older than 30 years of age had higher hearing losses.

Conclusions:

Although IDs dive more frequently than RDs, their age, physical capacity, and diving depth plays a major saving role on their hearing levels. It is a well-known fact that RD are older and dive deeper. To best of our knowledge and from our results, older age and deeper depths are believed to worsen the hearing levels.