Kumar Rawish, Munjal Sanjay Kumar, Sharma Anuradha, Alam Md Noorain, Panda Naresh K
Department of Otolaryngology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India.
J Otol. 2022 Jul;17(3):140-145. doi: 10.1016/j.joto.2022.04.004. Epub 2022 Apr 29.
The objective was to measure the effect of various face masks on speech recognition threshold and the word recognition score in the presence of varying background noise levels. 20 normal-hearing adult subjects (a total of 40 ears) participated. Pure tone audiometry followed by speech recognition threshold and word recognition score at the most comfortable level in varying signal-to-noise ratios (SNR0, SNR10, and SNR15) using surgical, pleated cloth, and N95 masks. Using surgical, cloth, and N95 masks, speech recognition thresholds increased by 1.8 dB, 4.4 dB, and 5.05 dB, respectively. Word recognition scores decreased by 32% without a mask, 43.7% in a surgical mask, 46.3% in a cloth mask, and 46.7% in N95 mask conditions, between SNR15 and SNR0. The speech recognition threshold was negatively affected with cloth and N95 masks. Surgical masks do not affect the word recognition scores at lower background noise levels. However, as the signal-to-noise ratio decreased, even the surgical, cloth, and N95 masks significantly impacted the word recognition score even in normal-hearing individuals.
目的是测量在不同背景噪声水平下，各种口罩对言语识别阈值和单词识别分数的影响。20名听力正常的成年受试者（共40只耳朵）参与了研究。先进行纯音听力测定，然后使用外科口罩、褶皱布口罩和N95口罩，在不同信噪比（SNR0、SNR10和SNR15）下，于最舒适水平测量言语识别阈值和单词识别分数。使用外科口罩、布口罩和N95口罩时，言语识别阈值分别提高了1.8 dB、4.4 dB和5.05 dB。在SNR15和SNR0之间，不戴口罩时单词识别分数下降了32%，戴外科口罩时下降了43.7%，戴布口罩时下降了46.3%，戴N95口罩时下降了46.7%。布口罩和N95口罩对言语识别阈值有负面影响。在较低背景噪声水平下，外科口罩不会影响单词识别分数。然而，随着信噪比降低，即使是外科口罩、布口罩和N95口罩，对听力正常个体的单词识别分数也有显著影响。
