Abstract
BackgroundHearing impairment is a common chronic condition which can be closely related to people’s health. However, current studies on this topic are quite limited in developing countries, and few with standardized audiometric measurement and multiple health outcomes. Therefore, we aimed to explore the association between hearing impairment and its severity with physical and mental health among Chinese middle-aged and older adults.MethodsWe obtained data from two sources: (1) China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011, 2013, and 2015, in which hearing impairment was measured by asking whether participants aged 45 years old had hearing problems; and (2) Hearing Survey 2019, the baseline survey of a randomized controlled trial conducted in Shandong Province of China, including 376 middle-aged and older participants. The severity of hearing impairment was identified by pure tone average of hearing thresholds at 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz.ResultsIn CHARLS, 1248 (8.36%) participants suffered from hearing impairment at baseline, and hearing-impaired individuals were more likely to have chronic diseases, impaired activities of daily living (ADLs), impaired instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and depressive symptoms. For the 376 hearing-impaired participants in Hearing Survey 2019, 30.32, 38.30 and 31.38% of them had moderate, severe and profound hearing impairment, respectively. As the severity of hearing impairment increased, individuals were likely to have impaired ADLs, impaired IADLs and depressive symptoms.ConclusionsHearing impairment and its severity were closely related to multiple physical and mental health outcomes among Chinese middle-aged and older adults. Actions should be taken to prevent and treat hearing impairment, so as to improve people’s health and well-being.
Highlights
Hearing impairment is one of the most common sensory dysfunctions, which adds to the burden of physical and mental health extensively [1]
The association between the severity of hearing impairment and multiple health outcomes Results from Hearing Survey 2019 showed that, different levels of hearing impairment severity were linked to different risks of having impaired Activities of daily living (ADLs), Instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs), and depressive symptoms
For those with severe and profound hearing impairment, the prevalence of impaired ADLs was significantly higher than the reference group (OR = 2.14, 95% Confidence Intervals (CI) = 1.12–4.10; Odd Ratios (OR) = 2.26, 95% CI = 1.15–4.44)
Summary
Hearing impairment is one of the most common sensory dysfunctions, which adds to the burden of physical and mental health extensively [1]. Hearing impairment often has a slow onset and progressive deterioration, resulting in unrecognized and under-treated health problems [3]. It brings about lower quality of life, including more comorbidity chronic diseases [4], impaired activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) [5, 6], as well as adverse mental health conditions such as depression [7, 8]. A large proportion of people regard hearing impairment as a natural process of aging which can be ignorable, so hearing impairment has not yet received enough attention as it deserves [14] In this context, it is imperative to conduct a study on the association between hearing impairment and health outcomes. We aimed to explore the association between hearing impairment and its severity with physical and mental health among Chinese middle-aged and older adults
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