On prediction of hearing recovery after acute acoustic trauma caused by impulse noise.

The present study investigates the prediction of how successfully hearing returns to normal after an acute acoustic trauma caused by a firearm shot, an explosion or other impulse noise. Study material consisted of 113 conscripts who had suffered an acute acoustic trauma during their military service. A logistic regression model was formed to predict hearing recovery. From several possible variables at least five were found to be important among our dataset, which is still rather limited. However, more data will be acquired later in order to elaborate the research more widely by using other methods also.