Changing beliefs about leisure noise: Using health promotion models to investigate young people's engagement with, and attitudes towards, hearing health

Abstract

Objective: To investigate factors influencing young people's motivation to reduce their leisure noise exposure, and protect their hearing health. Design: Questionnaires were conducted online to investigate young people's hearing health attitudes and behaviour. Items were developed using an integrated health promotion approach. The stage of change model was used to group participants in relation to their engagement with noise reduction behaviour. The health belief model was used to compare each group's perceptions of susceptibility and severity of hearing loss, as well as the benefits and barriers to noise reduction. Study sample: Results are presented for 1196 young Australians aged between 18 and 35 years. Results: Participants’ engagement with noise reduction behaviour was used to assign them to stage of change groupings: Maintenance (11%), Action (28%), Contemplation (14%), or Pre-contemplation (43%). Each group's responses to health belief model items highlighted key differences across the different stages of engagement. Conclusions: Future hearing health promotion may benefit from tailoring intervention activities to best suit the stage of change of individuals. Different information may be useful at each stage to best support and motivate young people to look after their hearing health.

Key Words::

• Young adults
• hearing health
• health promotion
• health belief model
• stage of change
• leisure
• noise-induced hearing loss

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the School of Leisure, Sport, and Tourism at The University of Technology, Sydney for their assistance in the development of the study. In particular, we acknowledge the work of Daniel Lock in the creation and conduct of the surveys. This project was funded by the Australian Government's Office of Hearing Services under its Hearing Loss Prevention Program.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Notes

¹ A panel is a previously recruited group of individuals who meet a researcher's demographic requirements and have agreed to participate in research for a limited time period.