Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDIOLOGY
Volume 50, Issue 5, Pages 297-302Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.3109/14992027.2010.549517
Keywords
Hearing loss; Elderly; HHIE-S
Funding
- South-Western Finlands Hospital District
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Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the Finnish version of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for Elderly Screening (HHIE-S) questionnaire and a simple single-question method in detecting hearing loss. Design: We compared the HHIE-S score and the single question with audiometry results. By analysing the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the HHIE-S scores we estimated the appropriate cut-off points for the different degrees of hearing loss. Study Sample: 164 home-dwelling subjects in the age cohorts of 70, 75, 80 and 85 years in an industrialized town in Finland filled in the questionnaire, and attended the audiometry. Results: For the detection of moderate or worse hearing loss (i.e., pure tone average at 0.5-4 kHz frequencies > 40 dB), the HHIE-S cut-off score of > 8 had a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 59.7%. The single question had a sensitivity of 100% and a specificity of 70.7%. Thus, the single question was equally sensitive and more specific in detecting moderate or worse hearing loss than the HHIE-S score. However, for the detection of mild hearing loss (i.e., pure tone average > 25 dB), the HHIE-S was more sensitive but less specific than the single question.
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