Objective:

To describe the knowledge built regarding the effects on the hearing health of people exposed to outbreaks of conventional and unconventional weapons of war used in various armed conflicts.

Materials and methods:

Systematic exploratory review of the scientific production carried out in the last 20 years, between 1999 and 2019. The identification of bibliographic references was carried out through the consultation of databases and search interfaces such as BIREME.BR, Academic Oxford, EBSCOHOST, PubMed and Google Scholar. A total of 1801 references were retrieved and qualitative and quantitative research, scientific reports, and literature reviews were included in the review. A total of 41 articles were selected for full-text review. Qualitative synthesis was carried out due to heterogeneity in the studies.

Results:

There was a growing interest in the study of this problem throughout the period covered especially from English-speaking countries involved in international armed conflicts. The otology difficulties that were most reported after exposure to explosions by weapons of war were: perforation in the tympanic membrane, hearing loss, tinnitus; earache, dizziness or vertigo, and otorrhea. There are differential patterns between civilian and military populations.

Conclusions:

The auditory system is the most commonly affected system by overpressure due to explosion from devices used as weapons in armed conflicts. In addition to the reported otology difficulties, it is necessary to study the disability generated in those affected, as well as the psychosocial repercussions of the audiological symptoms established.

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