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Factors that Affect the Hearing Thresholds of Call Center Workers  

Yoo, Kye Mook (Occupational Safety & Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency)
Kim, Kab Bae (Occupational Safety & Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency)
Chung, Kwang Jae (Occupational Safety & Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency)
Kim, Kyoo Sang (Occupational Safety & Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency)
Publication Information
Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene / v.21, no.3, 2011 , pp. 168-176 More about this Journal
Abstract
Objectives: Hundreds of thousands of call center workers are wearing an acoustic device for their businesses, such as telemarketing and customer counseling, and the number of the workers are increasing sharply. Because call center workers always talk to dozens of customers over the headset, they would be placed under the state of a higher risk with their hearing ability. The purpose of this study is to investigate factors that affect the hearing thresholds for the call center workers. Methods: This study investigated hearing losses of 101 workers of 5 call centers in Korea by executing puretone audiometry and self-administered questionnaires. A cross table analysis was processed to compare gender differences between male and female. Male and female hearing thresholds were compared with the Students' t-test, and one-way ANOVA was conducted to observe the difference between non-occupational and occupational characteristics in 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 kHz hearing thresholds for the female workers. Additionally, multiple regression analysis was conducted to find the factors that affect the 4 kHz hearing thresholds. Results and Conclusions: Male hearing thresholds were higher than those of female except for 8 kHz. In the group having an ear related disease, hearing threshold of male left ear was highly affected rather than that of female in 4 kHz. There were significant differences in the variables of alcohol drinking (2 kHz) and headset volume (8 kHz) in both ears. While this study does not show any significant factors that affect the hearing thresholds in the occupational characteristics, the gender and the previous ear related diseases, non-occupational characteristics, were found as the factors in 4 kHz. It is suggested that the more detailed survey be performed to identify the occupational factors that affect the hearing thresholds in the call center workers based on the result derived from this study.
Keywords
call center; hearing loss; headset; acoustic device;
Citations & Related Records
Times Cited By KSCI : 4  (Citation Analysis)
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