Evaluating the influence of fire arm shot on hearing threshold of soldiers

Loud noise in the environment can result in many complications the most common of which is hearing impairment. The first part to be affected is the outer hair cells in cochlea. Soldiers in the military service are in close contact with loud noise produced by fire arm shots. The present descriptive study evaluated the hearing changes in a group of soldiers spending their term of military service in Qazvin 16 Armored Division. Soldiers with no previous hearing complications were checked for hearing threshold of both left and right ears at different frequencies before and after shooting by P.T.A and O.A.E devices. Comparing the results, a significant difference in hearing threshold of the left and right ears at 4000 and higher frequencies before and after shooting incident was revealed. However, no significant difference at lower frequencies was observed.