Pérdida de la capacidad auditiva en profesionales de la salud: revisión sistemática

Abstract

Objective: To identify health professionals in whom exposure to noise in the work environment has been evaluated for hearing loss. Method: Search equations were applied in Pubmed, Embase, Science direct, Scopus and Web of science databases. The articles were identified by two researchers independently by reading the title and abstract. The selection of studies included those published in the last ten years in English, Spanish and Portuguese. Quality assessment was performed using the STROBE and TREND tools for observational and quasi-experimental studies, respectively. The information on the variables of interest was obtained from the articles read and was entered in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Results: It was found that dentists and their clinical specialties were the professionals where most research on noise exposure had been carried out (53.3%). This was followed by physicians, surgeons and ambulance personnel. However, endoscopy rooms are the work environment with the highest noise level detected (108.3 db). Conclusion: According to the scientific literature, dentists are the health professionals with the highest exposure to noise in the work environment. The absence of periodic audiological assessments as well as prolonged exposure to instruments such as handpieces, among others, and noise external to the work environment are factors that have been related to hearing loss in health professionals.