PURPOSE: To characterize the users of Individual portable sound equipment by hearing prevention in public schools. CASE REPORT: This quantitative analytical transversal study investigated attitudes and habits of 86 teenagers who used individual portable sound equipment. Females (55.81%) and males (44.2%) with an average age of 13.53 years were administered questionnaires after a lecture about noise awareness. RESULTS: Most teenagers used individual portable sound equipment (94.19%)-49.38% at high intensity-for an average time of 153.5 min/day. They reported using bilateral phones (95.06%) or insertion phones (76.54%). With respect to their knowledge about the unleashing of hearing loss by use of earphones, 70 (81.40%) teenagers answered that the use does not cause hearing loss and (68.61%) teenagers answered that decreasing the volume could be the best way to avoid hearing loss from using individual portable sound equipment. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the teenagers used (at a high sound intensity) individual portable sound equipment with an insertion design and that they did not know the adverse consequences of the use of individual portable sound equipment. This attitude is in contrast to the importance of educational actions by professional audiologists with the aim of promoting, preventing, and protecting people from the effects of inappropriate use of individual portable sound equipment. Therefore, an active program in the community school can create healthier hearing habits.
