TY - JOUR AU - Zahra, Gul -e- AU - Saqulain, Ghulam AU - Mumtaz, Nazia PY - 2021/12/28 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - HEARING HANDICAP IN OLDER ADULTS: A MULTI-CENTER STUDY JF - Pakistan Armed Forces Medical Journal JA - PAFMJ VL - 71 IS - Suppl-3 SE - Original Articles DO - 10.51253/pafmj.v1i1.3137 UR - https://pafmj.org/PAFMJ/article/view/3137 SP - S590-93 AB - <p><strong>Objective:</strong> To determine the level of hearing handicap and its age and gender association in older adults.</p><p><strong>Study Design:</strong> Cross sectional analytical study.</p><p><strong>Place and Duration of Study:</strong> Study conducted at Ear, Nose &amp; Throat outpatients of Yusra General Hospital, National Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine Islamabad and Cantonment General Hospital Rawalpindi, from Jul to Sep 2017.</p><p><strong>Methodology:</strong> We recruited two hundred cases of self-reported hearing difficulty, using non-probability consecutive sampling, who fulfilled inclusion criteria. After recording demographic details including history, subjects were screened by the Screening Version of Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE-S). Followed by otoscopy and pure tone audiometry. Analysis was done using SPSS-24.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Study revealed 133 (65.5%) males and 67 (33.5%) females with mean age of 65.45 ± 7.50 years. Out of 179 (89.5%) had significantly high level of hearing handicap with HHIE-S score &gt;43, while 21 (10.5%) revealed mild to moderate handicap with score of 17-42. Hearing handicap was significantly associated with aging (p&lt;0.001), while no significant gender association was noted. Hearing loss was mainly of sensory-neural type 192 (96%).</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> In older adults with self-reported hearing loss, high level of hearing handicap was present in majority (89.5%) and mild to moderate in 10.5%, with significant association with aging and hearing loss was predominantly sensory- neural type.</p> ER -