Objective@#To investigate
hearing loss status of blasters, drillers
mechanics and so on in underground
mining, and put forward
suggestion diagnosis of occupational
explosive deafness and occupational
deafness.@*
Methods@#Underground excavation
workers in a
metal mine were recruited in this study, those with a
history of
ear disease and non-occupational
deafness were all excluded. Finally, the features of pure tone
audiometry of 459
noise-exposed
workers were analyzed.@*Results@#
High-frequency hearing loss occurred on 351workers and the positive
detection rate was 74.29%,
workers who had both high-frequency and
linguistic frequency
hearing loss were 51 and the positive
detection rate was 11.11%. The positive
detection of
high-frequency hearing loss in right
ear (χ2=9.427 and P= 0.024) and in left
ear (χ2=14.375, P=0.002) was significantly different between different exposure
age groups. The positive
detection of
high-frequency hearing loss of driving group was the highest, followed by blasting group,
mining group and machine repair group. The characteristics of the
hearing loss caused by drilling
noise of the blasting
workers with no
accident occurred were in line with that of
noise-induced hearing loss.@*Conclusion@#The
diagnosis grading should be carried out according to the diagnostic criteria of
occupational noise-induced
deafness for the
employees who engaged in the blasting operation with no
record of blast
accident.