Relation between Audiological Findings and Complaints by Persons Suffering from Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

In this article the author points out that, in the case of perceptive deafness (sensorineural involvement), hearing loss for understanding of conversational speech cannot be determined by means of pure-tone audiometric testing. Some years ago a survey was performed in The Netherlands, its aim being to provide industrial medical officers with a simple, yet reliable method of testing, which would determine the social hearing validity in case of noise-induced deafness. This discrimination loss can be expressed as an integer. A description is given of the statistical analysis of the material, an analysis which included the relation between pure-tone audiometry and industrial speech audiometry, and in particular the relation between hearing complaints and the results of pure-tone and industrial speech audiometric testing.