Effect of mobile phone use on hearing status of medical students of tertiaryhealthcare hospital

The present study was carried out to evaluate the hearing status in chronic mobile phone users and alteration in hearing status depending on years of mobile usage, per day use and longest dialogue duration in a day. This was a cross sectional observational study. Preliminary questionnairewas asked to MBBS students of a medical college and 60 volunteers were selected who were using mobile phones for at least 1 year and not having any other causes of hearing loss. In the study group, dominant ear of the subjects was included and non-dominant ear was considered as a control group. Pure tone Audiometry was done to evaluate the hearing status. Out of 60 subjects, in 76.66% subjects, right ear was dominant and in 23.33% of subjects, left ear was dominant for mobile use 52 (86.66%) dominant ears had normal hearing and 8 (13.33%) had hearing loss in high frequencies (4000 and 8000 Hz). Hearing was normal in non-dominant ear of all subjects. Mean hearing threshold in dominant ear was 10.54 + 5.75 dB while in non-dominant ear, it was 6.67 + 3.76 dB. The difference was statistically significant (p value <0.05). Hearing loss in the dominant ear was seen in subjects who were using mobile phones for 1–3 hours per day, with total duration of use > 3years and in those with longest call duration of >30 minutes. Our conclusion is that hearing threshold increases in dominant ear with long term use of mobile phone and hearing loss is more in higher frequencies in such subjects.