Abstract
The World Health Organization (WHO) advocates for community accessibility of ear and hearing health services. The success of such services is influenced by a community’s under-standing of hearing loss causes and attitudes towards persons with hearing loss (PWHL). A cross-sectional mixed methods study was conducted in a local community in southwestern Uganda aimed at assessing knowledge on causes of hearing loss (HL) and attitudes towards PWHL using questionnaires and Focus group discussions (FGDs). Quantitative data was ana-lyzed using STATA and reported as frequencies while qualitative data was recorded, tran-scribed and relevant themes reported. A total of 370 participants between 18-35 years were recruited for the study. Community knowledge level on HL was high for congenital anoma-lies (77.3%), drugs (77%), infections like measles (84.3%) and excessive phone use (92.7%). A few participants attributed HL to cultural factors like witchcraft (45.1%). The majority of participants had favourable attitudes towards PWHL agreeing that PWHL should seek medi-cal care (95.1%), shouldn’t be isolated (95.1%) and also face unique social problems. Unfa-vourable attitudes included the belief that PWHL cannot perform as well as their hearing peers and that they are emotionally disturbed. The study revealed a community knowledgea-ble on HL causes but with limited appreciation of the capabilities and unique challenges of PWHL which negatively influences the community attitude towards PWHL
Published Version
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