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  • Agreement between audiometric hearing loss and self-reported hearing difficulty on the Revised Hearing Handicap Inventory differs by demographic factors

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Original research
Agreement between audiometric hearing loss and self-reported hearing difficulty on the Revised Hearing Handicap Inventory differs by demographic factors
  1. Lauren K Dillard,
  2. Lois J Matthews,
  3. Judy R Dubno
  1. Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Lauren K Dillard, Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA; dillalau{at}musc.edu

Abstract

Background New standardised measures of self-reported hearing difficulty can be validated against audiometric hearing loss. This study reports the influence of demographic factors (age, sex, race and socioeconomic position (SEP)) on the agreement between audiometric hearing loss and self-reported hearing difficulty.

Methods Participants were 1558 adults (56.9% female; 20.0% racial minority; mean age 63.7 (SD 14.1) years) from the Medical University of South Carolina Longitudinal Cohort Study of Age-Related Hearing Loss (1988–current). Audiometric hearing loss was defined as the average of pure-tone thresholds at frequencies 0.5, 1.0, 2.0 and 4.0 kHz >25 dB HL in the worse ear. Self-reported hearing difficulty was defined as ≥6 points on the Revised Hearing Handicap Inventory (RHHI) or RHHI screening version (RHHI-S). We report agreement between audiometric hearing loss and the RHHI(-S), defined by sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and observed minus predicted prevalence. Estimates were stratified to age group, sex, race and SEP proxy.

Results The prevalence of audiometric hearing loss and self-reported hearing difficulty were 49.0% and 48.8%, respectively. Accuracy was highest among participants aged <60 (77.6%) versus 60–70 (71.4%) and 70+ (71.9%) years, for white (74.6%) versus minority (68.0%) participants and was similar by sex and SEP proxy. Generally, agreement of audiometric hearing loss and RHHI(-S) self-reported hearing difficulty differed by age, sex and race.

Conclusions Relationships of audiometric hearing loss and self-reported hearing difficulty vary by demographic factors. These relationships were similar for the full (RHHI) and screening (RHHI-S) versions of this tool.

  • AGING
  • CHRONIC DI
  • COHORT STUDIES
  • EPIDEMIOLOGIC MEASUREMENTS
  • TREATMENT OUTCOME

Data availability statement

Data are available upon reasonable request. Deidentified participant data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author under a data use agreement.

https://doi.org/10.1136/jech-2024-222143

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    Data availability statement

    Data are available upon reasonable request. Deidentified participant data are available upon reasonable request to the corresponding author under a data use agreement.

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors LKD (guarantor) conceptualised the study, developed the methodology, conducted the formal analysis and wrote the original manuscript. LJM provided resources for this study, contributed to project administration and funding acquisition, and writing (review/edit) of the manuscript. JRD provided resources for this study, contributed to project administration funding acquisition, and supervision, and writing (review/edit) of the manuscript.

    • Funding This work was funded (in part) by the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders Individual Postdoctoral Fellowship (F32 DC021078), Institutional Training Grant (T32 DC014435) and Clinical Research Center (P50 DC 000422) awarded to the Medical University of South Carolina and by the South Carolina Clinical and Translational Research (SCTR) Institute, with an academic home at the Medical University of South Carolina, NIH/NCATS Grant number UL1 TR001450. This investigation was conducted in a facility constructed with support from Research Facilities Improvement Programme Grant Number C06 RR14516 from the NIH/NCRR.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.