Knowledge, Perception and Attitude of Sound Engineers to Hearing Conservation Programme in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Noise is everywhere in all nations of the world, but the rate as well as mechanisms of exposure differ according to the nature of such an environment. High noise in work place leads to hearing loss that has serious and long lasting health implication on the affected. Hence, efforts are being made to facilitate reduction of the impact of workplace noise among workers that perform their duties in risky noise zone through hearing conservation programme. However, one cannot conclude on the reaction to this programme by workers without empirical basis. Thus, this study investigated the influence of knowledge and perception of hearing conservation programme on attitude of sound engineers in Oyo State, Nigeria. Methodology: The study employed descriptive survey research design with 250 sound engineers purposively selected. The instruments used in this study were sound meter level and hearing conservation awareness scale (HCAS) adapted from Purdue University hearing conservation programme with reliability of 0.72 using cronbach alpha measure. Results: Three hypotheses were tested and the results revealed that there was significant positive relationship between knowledge and perception of sound engineers and their attitude towards hearing conservation programme, knowledge and perception of sound engineers jointly predict their attitude towards hearing conservation programme and perception of sound engineers contributed mostly to the attitudes of sound engineers to hearing conservation programme. Conclusion: The study has been able to establish that the knowledge and perception of the sound engineers about hearing conservation have positive influence on their attitude and the practice of same conservation protocol. Therefore, health-related workshop, sensitization, awareness and education on the need/practice of hearing conservation, as well as baseline audiometric evaluation should be organised for workers, especially the sound engineers and a host of other industrial employees who work more 8hours per day in the noisy areas within their places of work.