Effect of Powered Air-Purifying Respirators on Speech Recognition Among Health Care Workers

Powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) are used as personalized protective equipment for health care personnel. PAPRs offer health care workers added protection when dealing with patients who have high-risk infectious disease such as COVID-19. Unfortunately, PAPRs can produce notable levels of background noise. We hypothesize that PAPR use may be associated with increased hearing thresholds and impaired word discrimination and may ultimately have a negative impact on effective communication. Herein, we (1) determined sound levels generated by PAPRs and (2) measured hearing thresholds and word discrimination with and without operational PAPRs. All participants had normal hearing. When the PAPR was operational, mean +/- SD thresholds increased from 4.5 +/- 3.6 to 38.6 +/- 5.6 dB HL (P< .001). Word discrimination dropped from 100% in all participants in quiet to a mean 48% +/- 14% with operational PAPR (P< .001). Thus, we find that use of PAPR hoods results in hearing impairment comparable to moderate to severe hearing loss, and we suspect that users will experience communication difficulties as a result. Level of Evidence.Prospective study.

Automated summary

The use of powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) by healthcare personnel may lead to hearing impairment and communication difficulties, especially when dealing with patients with high-risk infectious diseases.