Variables Age < 25 25 to 35 36 to 45 > 45 Mean ± SD Min-max Gender Female Male No Yes No Yes Tinnitus No Yes No Yes Hearing Complaint Music listening habits Ototoxicity exposure n = 82 8 33 23 18 4 78 60 22 57 25 52 30 72 10 37.38 ± 9.98 20–65 % 9.8 40.2 28.0 22.0 4.9 95.1 73.2 26.8 69.5 30.5 63.4 36.6 87.8 12.0 n = 95 9 52 21 13 35.09 ± 9.56 22–65 4 91 84 11 70 25 84 11 84 11 % 9.5 54.7 22.1 13.7 4.2 95.8 88.4 11.6 73.7 26.3 88.4 11.6 88.4 11.6 p 0.949a 0.054a 0.316a 0.149a 0.122b 0.718a 0.009a 0.539a < 0.001a > 0.05 BMC Public Health 2008, 8:151 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/8/151 Table 1: Distribution of participants in the study groups according to age, gender, hearing complaints, music listening habits, tinnitus and presence of ototoxicity exposure. Sound technicians Controls aChi-square test i Student's t test for homogenous independent samples nician group and control group in these respects, thus ren- dering the study sample homogeneous without such bias in the results (Table 1). Furthermore, the individuals in both study groups were predominantly within the age range from 25 to 35 years old. Thus, young adults pre- dominated in our study, with a consequently lower risk of developing presbyacusis (Table 1). There was a statistically significant difference (p = 0.009) with regard to the presence of hearing complaints between the individuals in the sound technician and con- trol groups (Table 1). Thus, the sound technicians had more hearing complaints than did the control group, and tinnitus was the most frequently reported complaint. These results were already expected and corroborate the results from various studies carried out among musicians in street carnival bands, disc jockeys, symphony orchestra musicians and others, which have described tinnitus and dizziness as the most frequently reported complaints [19- 30]. There were no statistically significant differences in music listening habits and ototoxicity exposure between the groups studied (p > 0.05) (Table 1). However, the expo- sure to noise during leisure activities that was most men- tioned in the studies that we researched in the literature and also in our study was going to discos and using a walkman [19-30]. Tinnitus is a symptom that may be found in workers suf- fering from high frequency hearing loss consistent with noise exposure and, according to Ferreira Júnior (1998) Page 5 of 8 (page number not for citation purposes)