Source avec lien : Ergonomics, (En ligne). 10.1080/00140139.2021.1990415
De nombreux travailleurs sont exposés à des niveaux de bruit qui peuvent provoquer des problèmes auditifs. Les bouchons d’oreille restent une forme courante de protection pour les travailleurs exposés à des niveaux dangereux. Leur confort affecte directement l’efficacité de la protection en influençant leur utilisation cohérente et correcte. Afin d’évaluer le confort, le questionnaire COPROD a été préalablement développé sur la base de quatre dimensions de confort : acoustique, physique, fonctionnel et psychologique.
Many workers are exposed to noise levels that can cause hearing problems. Earplugs remain a common form of protection for workers exposed to hazardous levels. Their comfort directly affects the effective protection by influencing their consistent and correct use. In order to assess comfort, the COPROD questionnaire was previously developed on the basis of four comfort dimensions: acoustic, physical, functional and psychological. During this field survey, nine earplug models were evaluated by 118 participants over a 6-week period. This paper presents analyses of the collected data and compares three families of earplugs: roll-down foam, premolded and custom moulded. Analyses have shown a better rating of custom moulded earplugs in terms of overall comfort and for all dimensions of comfort. Although premolded earplugs are generally preferred to roll-down foam earplugs, from a statistical point of view, the evaluations of these two families are not significantly different for numerous characteristics. Practitioner Summary: Earplugs comfort conditions the hearing protection of the users. The COPROD questionnaire was developed to jointly evaluate all dimensions of comfort. Nine earplugs models were evaluated by 118 participants during 6 weeks. This paper presents analyses of the collected data.