| ARTICLE |
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| Year : 2009 | Volume
: 11
| Issue : 42 | Page : 54--58 |
Elementary school children's knowledge and intended behavior toward hearing conservation
Hsiaochuan Chen1, Minju Huang2, Jiuhunhwa Wei3
1 National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan
2 Dahu Elementary School, Taiwan
3 National Taitung University, Taiwan
Correspondence Address:
Hsiaochuan Chen
Graduate Institute of Audiology and Speech Therapy, National Kaohsiung Normal University, 116 Heping 1st Road, Kaohsiung
Taiwan
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
DOI: 10.4103/1463-1741.45313
The purposes of the study were to investigate children's knowledge about hearing conservation, the types of protective behaviors they would adopt in noise, the agreement between children's knowledge and intended behaviors in hearing protection, and reasons why they would not take any protective action in noise. A questionnaire was administered to 479 fourth and fifth graders in their school classrooms. Results indicated that children scored low (62.0%) on this hearing conservation questionnaire. They scored the highest in strategies of hearing protection (69.9%), followed by their knowledge in general hearing health (62.6%) and noise hazards (49.6%). Only 55% of children knew that hearing protective devices could protect them against noise. Approximately 28% of children did not intend to adopt any protective behavior in noise and the major reason for this was lack of knowledge. Children's knowledge and their noise protective behavior were correlated ( P < .05). However, possessing knowledge did not guarantee that children would adopt such behaviors when they were exposed to loud sounds. It is important to increase children's knowledge about hearing protection and hazardous noise as well as to encourage actual protective actions.
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