Sivil Pilotlarda Gürültü Maruziyetine Bağlı Hiperakuzinin Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

Hyperacusis is a loudness perception disorder in which sounds normally thought to be harmless become intolerable. It is characterized by negative reactions to sounds at lower levels compared to the majority of population. Avoiding sound sources and looking for medical support are common behaviors. It can cause significant distress and impairment in social, occupational and other daily activities. Symptoms of hyperacusis; includes disturbed sleep, fatigue, negative emotional condition, anxiety, and concentration disorders. The most common cause of hyperacusis is exposure to loud noise. Occupational and recreational noise exposure and noise-induced hearing loss are often cited as major risk factors. Noise is defined as “unwanted sound”. Lack of control along with noise are two well-known stressors. Environmental noise is a distraction, even among healthy adults, increasing mental workload and taking over available cognitive resources, reducing task performance. Therefore, people with hyperacusis are likely to experience high stress. The working environment in aviation is quite noisy. Especially pilots are among the groups most exposed to noise. Hearing health is critical to the performance of many professional activities, and even more so for aviation activities because perception mistakes can result in aviation accidents. For this reason, it is very important to investigate hearing health under different topics, even if the hearing thresholds in pilots are within normal limits. In this study, by applying the Khalfa Hyperacusis Questionnaire to student pilots, co-pilots and captain pilots between the ages of 18-69 flying propeller and commercial jet aircraft in civil aviation; complaints of hyperacusis in civilian pilots were evaluated by considering factors such as gender, age, total flight hours and previous job. 174 (9 female, 165 male) civilian pilots working in different airline companies participated in the study. The Khalfa Hyperacusis Questionnaire was delivered to the pilots participating in the study from an online survey platform and the answers were collected. When the results were evaluated, it was observed that the hyperacusis complaints increased as the flight and duty hours increased in the pilots (p<0.05). In addition, it was found that pilots with military flight experience in the past had higher scale scores with a significant difference (p<0.05). No significant correlation was found between past hearing problems and scale scores. As a result; It has been shown that as the flight time increases, the complaints of hyperacusis increase in pilots.