Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Epidemiology of hearing problems among adults in Italy.

1996; National Institutes of Health; Volume: 42; Linguagem: Inglês

Nicola Quaranta, Giorgio Assennato, V Sallustio,

Hearing, Cochlea, Tinnitus, Genetics

Estimates for the prevalence of self-reported hearing disability and measured hearing impairment as a function of age in the adult population of Italy are reported. The study was conducted in Bari, Florence, Milan, Padua, Palermo with questionnaire and audiological assessment; neither stage showed any gross bias arising from the particular cities chosen. The results have demonstrated that: 22% of subjects think their hearing abnormal, 24.4% report some difficulty understanding speech, 14.5% experienced prolonged spontaneous tinnitus and 17% have a > or = 25 dB HL bilateral hearing impairment; hearing problems increase progressively with age and show no significant differences between men and women; the occupational groups most at risk as far as hearing impairments are concerned are manual workers and workers exposed to occupational noise; the systemic disorders most significantly connected to hearing problems are dyslipidosis, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases and cervical arthrosis; among every day habits, the consumption of alcohol seems the only element of risk, above all for tinnitus.