engleski

The performance of The Hearing Self-Assessment Questionnaire (HSAQ) in hearing impairment screening in adults

Early detection of hearing loss is one of the most important prerequisites of successful aural rehabilitation, since it allows the intervention to be focused predominatly on hearing and communication difficulties, rather than socio-emotional difficulties that arise from long periods dominated by communication breakdowns accompanied by quality-of-life threatening inter- and intrapersonal experiences.It seems that screening questionnaires do possess the ability to fulfill this task, but the question remains whether the adaptations of commonly used questionnaires to other languages is compromised by cultural relevance of specific items. Therefore, the option to create domestic screening test might be more clinically justifiable. In this study, diagnostic properties of Croatian hearing loss test for adults were examined, which was proposed as a screening tool for domestic clinical settings. The Hearing Self-Assessment Questionnaire (HSAQ) - a 10-item Likert type hearing loss screening questionnaire - was administered alongside audiological examination in 54 adult females and 70 males (mean age 56.5 years) who were healthy otherwise. Among them, 64 (mean age 52.4 years) had normal hearing (4- frequencies PTAs below 25 dBHL), and 60 (mean age 60.9 years) had hearing impairment (4- frequencies PTAs bilaterally over 25 dBHL). Internal consistency and intraclass correlation coefficient of the HSAQ were inspected, and validity was examined by Mann-Whitney U test. Correlation between HSAQ scores and PTAs was calculated, and RAC curve analysis was performed to calculate sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, likelihood ratios and probabilities. Finally, cluster analysis and Kruskall-Wallis test was employed to categorize hearing impaired subjects according to PTAs and HSAQ scores. As indicated by the results of the statistical analysis, the HSAQ gives reliable and valid estimation of presence of socio-emotional consequences of hearing loss, has the potential to roughly grade them, and is sensitive, specific and predictive enough for clinical application in screening for hearing loss over 25 dBHL in adults.

Hearing self-assessment; questionnaire; hearing loss screening; adults

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