Evaluating listening behaviours of nightclub goers: An international web-based study with resident advisor

Background: Nightclubs expose nearly 40% of young adults in high- and middle-income countries to damaging levels of noise with attendant risk of noise-damage hearing symptoms and sequelae of mood disorders, social isolation and dementia. This study evaluated clubbers hearing symptoms, visiting behaviours and safe listening habits.

Material and Methods: A web-based, population-specific data collection tool was shown to visitors of the dance music website Resident Advisor over a 7-hour period. It identified how often and for how long clubbers attend loud music venues (as this will influence their safe-noise dose) alongside their attitudes, use of safer listening practices and whether their visit frequency changed with the presence of hearing symptoms. For analysis, we used descriptive statistics, Chi-squared test, Fisher exact test and logistic regression analysis.

Results: We collected 1020 (29.0%) responses from 3516 data collection tool invites. Key findings are as follows: 73.4% (n = 749) of respondents had permanent ear symptoms (‘sometimes’, ‘often’ or ‘always’). Respondents attended loud music venues 1–5 times per month (78.5%, n = 801) for a duration of 5–6 hours a visit (41.1%, n = 419) on average. When in loud venues, 32.3% wore earplugs, 38.5% took regular listening breaks, 5.9% checked the noise level, 45.4% moved to a quieter spot and 13.2% had a hearing test in the last year. Two-thirds and one-half of those with no or temporary hearing symptoms, respectively, would attend music venues less often if they were to develop symptoms or if symptoms were to worsen.

Conclusions: Based on our visit data, the average music venue patron has some degree of permanent hearing-damage symptoms and should be aware that they are very likely to exceed their safe-noise dose (and risk irreversible hearing damage) even in venues adhering to the World Health Organization standard for safe listening loudness.