The first eletrocnic Journal of Otolaryngology in the world
ISSN: 1809-9777
E-ISSN: 1809-4864
1623
Year: 2013 Vol. 17 Num. Suppl. 1 - - (244º)
Section:
KNOWLEDGE OF ENGINEERS ON THE ROLE OF AUDIOLOGIST IN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
Author(s):
Vera Cecilia Gelardi, Amanda Monteiro Magrini, Ana Cláudia Fiorini, Teresa Maria M. Santos
Abstract:
INTRODUCTION: The role of the audiologist in occupational health should be to perform auditory or vocal assessments and to participate in health and safety team activities by performing actions that ensure individual hearing health and collective hearing health in work settings. PURPOSE: The main goal was to investigate the knowledge of work safety engineers concerning the profession of audiologists and the audiologist's role in occupational health. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional descriptive survey form of secondary data. The sample consisted of 21 professional engineers and postgraduate students in engineering work safety in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. They answered a questionnaire concerning their knowledge of the role of the audiologist in occupational health. RESULTS: Few (3.5%) participants saw the audiologist as a professional who is a part of the health and safety team and 9.4% of the participants claimed to have worked with an audiologist. About 50% of the engineers reduced the role of the audiologist only to conducting audiometry, and most (80.95%) engineers did not have any contact with audiologists who worked in occupational health. CONCLUSION: The results show lack of knowledge on the part of future security engineers concerning the role of audiologist in the context of occupational health. They are also unaware that an audiologist is a skilled professional who is able to develop health programs for workers by acting with an interdisciplinary health and safety team.