Association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To investigate whether a possible association of mobile phone use with hearing impairment was conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis.

This is a systematic review and meta-analysis. A comprehensive literature search was carried out based on the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) methodology using PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, OVID, and Cochrane. The Robins-I tool was used for quality assessment and risk of bias. Two investigators independently reviewed all articles. Pooled effect size was calculated and meta-analysis was performed to compute an overall effect size.

Overall, five relevant studies (two cross-sectional and three cohort studies) with 92,978 participants were included in the analysis. The studies were stratified by design, there was no significant association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment in cross-sectional studies (OR=0.94, 95% CI=0.57-1.31) and cohort studies (OR=1.09, 95% CI=0.93-1.25). In addition, the effect estimates did not differ significantly between cross-sectional and cohort studies (Q=0.50, p=0.48). Overall, the pooled odds ratio (OR) of hearing impairment was 1.07 (95% CI: 0.94-1.20), which indicates no significant association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment.

Our findings indicate no association between mobile phone use and hearing impairment. However, these findings must be interpreted with caution.