Promoting hearing protective behaviors in adolescents and young adults: a survey to identify psychological intervention targets

Objective Exposure to loud noise can cause hearing loss and tinnitus. Few adolescents and young adults do, however, engage in hearing protective behaviours (HPBs) to reduce noise exposure. To enable the development of behavioural interventions, the present study aimed to identify influential, modifiable, psychological factors of HPB.Design An online survey measured predefined psychological factors and three HPBs (i.e. earplug use, safe listening, hearing protection at work). Psychological factors’ univariate distributions and their associations with the HPBs were assessed to identify their potential as intervention target.Study sample Persons 12 to 25 years of age living in the Netherlands (N = 1637, mean age = 18.6, 67.6% female).Results Less than one in three participants wore earplugs at music venues, and less than one in two kept a safe level of sound exposure during use of headphones and speakers. Anticipated regret, awareness, experiential attitude, capacity and social norms were the psychological factors most strongly associated with HPBs (r ≈ 0.45 to r ≈ 0.65, and d ≈ 0.9 to d ≈ 1.5) that simultaneously, had univariate distributions indicating room for improvement.Conclusions Anticipated regret, awareness, experiential attitude, capacity and social norms are potentially promising intervention targets to increase HPBs in young persons.