OCCUPATIONAL EXPOSURE TO NOISE - CASE STUDY OF A QUARTER OF FIREFIGHTERS IN CENTER REGION (Poster)

Noise exposure is currently one of the occupational hazards with higher expression in the workplace. The noise is considered as the physical agent unwholesome more common in the workplace, being characterized as a factor of greater prevalence of the origins of occupational diseases. Professionals from a firefighters community are constantly exposed to risks and occupying a prominent place is noise exposure. We conducted a study level II descriptive - correlational, cross-cutting, comparing later with Decree-Law n º 182/2006, of 6 September. Measurements were performed at 11 locations in the building and 3 different vehicles. We analyzed records of occurrence, between the years 2009 and 2012, and calculated the Daily Personal Exposure. There were also calculated maximum exposure times in the car (needed to reach the Exposure Limit Value). Questionnaires were distributed in order to understand if the professionals considered their workplace noisy and cumbersome and detected some kind of symptoms. It was concluded that the noise that was felt in the administrative areas and in vehicles was nuisance and that some professionals had symptoms of habituation to noise. It was also concluded that the awakening by alarm action in dormitories, causes discomfort and disruption in the professionals.