Chapter 1 26 workplace and room reverberation can be reduced with absorbent surfaces. Also, changing the sound of the telephone, or the sound of safety alarm systems can make them more audible. Secondly, organizational changes can be suggested to facilitate work functioning, such as working from home more often, taking more breaks, or spreading out meetings over the day. Lastly, providing information to the supervisor or colleagues can stimulate them to be more understanding and supportive. If technical interventions, aural rehabilitation, and occupational health interventions insufficiently enable job performance, changing work can be considered. Regarding the personal factors, providing information is suggested to be an important intervention for occupational physicians to provide. This includes information on hearing loss, the possible consequences of hearing loss for work functioning, options for technical interventions, communication strategies to use with colleagues, and websites where more information is provided. Additionally, the occupational physician can provide information on the possibilities for aural rehabilitation. Occupational physicians can send a referral for the interventions of interest. For example, the employee can be referred to an audiological center to start with a communication course, to a speech therapist for a training in speech reading, or to a social worker or psychologist for personal coaching. Outline of the thesis This thesis covers several aspects of professional functioning in employees with hearing loss. The following research aims are addressed: • To explore what hearing-related, personal, and environmental factors influence the difficulties of employees with hearing loss and how these factors interfere with each other; • To evaluate the effect of current rehabilitation practices measured with tools that are currently used in audiological practice; • To evaluate tests that can be used to assess the performance of hearingcritical job tasks and to describe the development of a new tool to evaluate the ability to detect auditory warning signals.
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