On the Accuracy and Repeatability of Occupational Audiograms Obtained by Non-Audiologists.

OBJECTIVE: Occupational audiograms are obtained during military service to check for possible hearing damage and to assess fitness for duty. This paper compares the accuracy and repeatability of audiograms obtained by non-audiologists and by trained audiologists. METHODS: Data from published papers on the accuracy and repeatability of audiograms obtained by audiologists and non-audiologists were assessed. RESULTS: Audiograms obtained by non-audiologists showed systematic deviations from those obtained by audiologists and showed far poorer repeatability (by a factor of about 1.8). CONCLUSIONS: It is recommended that: (1) occupational audiograms obtained by non-audiologists should not be used for the diagnosis or quantification of noise-induced hearing loss; (2) occupational audiograms should be obtained by independent and fully trained audiologists or should be obtained using an automated system that includes methods for the detection of false positives and inconsistent responses.