Abstract
This study was conducted to evaluate the influence of various levels of insertion-instructions on earplug attenuation. Five levels of instruction and five common earplug designs were evaluated. A Noise Reduction Estimate (NRE), a single-number rating for earplug dB attenuation, was determined for each earplug using each insertion-instruction technique. Results based on analysis of variance and subsequent Newman-Keuls tests revealed certain earplug designs were extremely sensitive to instruction. Comparison of obtained NRE data with a previous in-field investigation indicated that with some earplug designs, industrial workers were actually receiving noise protection equivalent to the protection achieved by the “no instruction” group in this study.
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