Intervenção para a prevenção da perda auditiva em um colégio público do estado do Paraná

Abstract

Purpose: Hearing health interventions have shown promising results for preventing hearing loss and tinnitus among adolescents. Several intervention strategies have been presented as an important methodology to change the habits, attitudes and behaviors of adolescents at high sound pressure levels. In this background, the Dangerous Decibels® program is an educational action carried out in schools as an international intervention methodology for the prevention of hearing problems in children and adolescents. The present study aims to evaluate a hearing health intervention with adolescents from a public school in Paraná, when developed by different applicators during the six months after the intervention. Methods: This is an intervention study of the community trial type, which analyzed educational actions carried out in a public school in the state of Paraná, with elementary and high school students, performed by a nurse and by three students trained by the Dangerous Decibels® program. Brazil. The intervention lasted 50 minutes. Four questionnaires were distributed to the participants. They were distributed before, immediately after, three and six months after the intervention. The questionnaires were about hearing habits, knowledge, behavior and attitudes of adolescents when exposed to high sound pressure levels. Results: The intervention involved 193 elementary and vocational high school students, 74% female and 26% male, aged between 10 and 19 years old. When the evaluation was carried out before and immediately after, the intervention showed satisfactory results for behavior, attitude and knowledge changes, according to gender, applicator and education level. There was a statistically significant difference before and immediately after the intervention for the areas of knowledge, attitude and behavior considering the adolescents' total score (p=0.000) and also between the intervention performed by the adolescents and the nurse exclusively for the attitude area (p=0.016). It achieved better results when the intervention was performed by the nurse. When the evaluation of the intervention was performed before, immediately after, three and six months after its application, a decrease in the number of correct answers was observed after three months of the intervention and it was sustained after six months of the intervention. There was no difference regarding the applicator of the intervention (nurse or adolescents). When analyzing the behavior area, it is evident that adolescents did not show any change in behavior regarding the use of hearing protectors over the course of six months. The results show that before the intervention 1% of the adolescents reported always using hearing protectors, after three months 4% of them and six months after the intervention 1%. The behavior change of the adolescents under study can be justified considering that they are still in the precontemplation phase of the transtheoretical model for behavior change, a period in which the adolescents are not aware that there is a health problem and that it needs to be modified. Conclusion: The Dangerous Decibels® program showed satisfactory results immediately after the intervention, but they did not last for six months. The intervention being applied by the nurse or by trained adolescents showed no significant difference. On the other hand, peer education was presented as a promising strategy for educational practices in hearing health. To better evaluate the results, it is necessary to follow the adolescents up for a period longer than six months so that monitoring, strategy readjustment and new intervention can be carried out.