Effects of life events and emotional stress on short-term curative efficacy in adolescents with sudden hearing loss

Abstract

Objective:To investigate the effects of life events and emotional stress on short-term curative efficacy in adolescents with low-tone sudden deafness （LTSD）. Method:Various psychological stress measures were conducted on adolescent patients with recently diagnosed LTSD before initiating treatment, and the follow-up hearing condition were also obtained after 3 months of treatment. Using logistic regression analysis, we identified the predictors of life stress and emotion symptoms of treatment response in these adolescent patients. Result:Treatment were effective in 103 cases and ineffective in 41 cases. The stress, depression and anxiety symptoms of the high-life events in the ineffective group were significantly higher than those in the effective group. The logistics regression analysis showed that life stress [OR（95%CI）=1.16（1.07-2.42） ] and depressive symptoms [OR（95%CI）=1.65（1.26-2.71） ] were significantly correlated with patients' prognosis after controlling for the duration of LTSD and the level of hearing loss before the treatment. Conclusion:We found life stress and depressive symptoms were the independent predictors of treatment response in adolescent patients with LTSD. Our results also highlighted that psychological intervention may be part of the primary treatment for LTSD in adolescents.