AUDITORY FUNCTIONS IN ANESTHESIA RESIDENTS DURING EXPOSURE TO OPERATING-ROOM NOISE

Twenty anaesthesia residents were exposed to a pre-recorded audio casette of operating room noise. The noise level during exposure was maintained at 77.32+/-1dB (A), which was the calculated average ,operating room noise in our institute. Two auditory functions i.e., speech reception threshold and speech discrimination were studied before and during exposure to noise in a pre-fixed order. The right and left ears were tested separately. Speech reception threshold showed a mean increase of 23.75+/-6.86 dB (A) for the right ear and 26.25+/-6.90 dB(A) for the left ear during exposure to noise, suggesting that speech communication may be possible only by raising the voice. Speech discrimination showed a mean percentage decrease of 23.3+/-4.82 per cent for the right ear and 23.5+/-3.89 per cent for the left ear implying that there can be a steep decrease in the ability to discriminate spoken words.