Nicotine-Induced Hearing Loss among Young Saudi Male Students

Background: Cigarette smoking and its physiologic effect is well documented in clinical literature. Other audiologic studies have equally established a link between smoking and auditory disorders. Aim and objective: This paper aims to draw a simple audiometric comparison between two groups of young adultssmoking and non-smoking young Saudi male students. Materials and methods: A total of forty (40) healthy male university students of age range 18-24 and mean of 21 voluntarily participated in the study. Audiometric findings of seven smokers age-matched with thirty-three nonsmokers were examined in the study. A researcher designed questionnaire, ‘Audiological Profile of Chronic Cigarette Smokers Questionnaire’ (APCCSQ) was administered on all the volunteer participants after its face and content validity had been ascertained by a faculty member who is independent of the study. Audiometric test was conducted in a standard double chamber IAC Acoustics AudioMetric booth of <35 dB background noise (ANSI S3.1-1991 specification). Each participant had otologic examination using Welch Allyn Digital Macro-View Video Otoscope, diagnostic pure tone audiometry using GSI 61 calibrated to ANSI (2004) specification. Participants also had middle ear examination using an up to date calibrated GSI 39 autotymp at 226 Hz probe tone. Only those with Tympanogram ‘A’ and otoscopic clearance were allowed to participate in the study. Results: Generally, audiometric findings in both groups were within normal limits but non-smokers were found to have a better hearing sensitivity than smokers when averages of audiometric thresholds were calculated. Another key observation was that threshold of hearing appeared to be slightly elevated in the higher frequencies of 4 and 8 KHz among smokers in comparison to non-smokers. The bar charts clearly show this.