WOMEN WITH NOISE-INDUCED HEARING-LOSS - AN INVISIBLE GROUP

The aim of this qualitative study was to describe, from the perspectiv e of women with noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL), their experiences o f noise as a threat to health and their having to live with a hearing disability, i.e. behaviours, thoughts and emotions in auditory demandi ng situations. Ten women, patients with NIHL at the Department of Audi ology, Boras' Hospital in Sweden, were selected to form a heterogeneou s sample. A taped-in-depth interview, lasting from 45 minutes to 1 hou r, was conducted with each woman. The verbatim transcribed interviews were consecutively analysed using a method influenced by the tradition of grounded theory. Four categories emerged in the process of analysi s. These categories were labelled: lack of awareness, ambivalence, con trolling and avoiding coping strategies and stigmatization. The catego ry 'lack of awareness' concerned the women's perceptions of the risks of noise on hearing, the lack of efforts on the part of the women to a pply for financial compensation for their NIHL, the lack of an awarene ss of individual's right to have a healthy work-place and to receive p rofessional help for hearing impairment. Also lacking was the concept that hearing impaired individuals have the right to participate in the community on similar conditions as non-hearing impaired people. This lack of awareness was identified as a core category relating to the ot her categories: ambivalence, controlling and avoiding coping strategie s and stigmatization. The women's expressions indicated ambivalence co ncerning the cause of the hearing disability and, also, how to manage the consequences of it: the women in the study seemed to alternate bet ween feelings of hopelessness/resignation and a state of acceptance of the hearing disability. Furthermore, the women alternated between bla ming themselves and blaming others for the cause of the hearing loss, indicating a change between internal and external locus of control. Al so, the women alternated between controlling and avoiding strategies i n coping with demanding auditory situations. The coping strategy chose n by the women in a specific situation intended to prevent or minimize stigmatization, i.e. 'to pass as normal' and thereby to maintain a po sitive self-image of normality. Despite this, the women often perceive d negative and stigmatizing attitudes from others, which reinforced th eir feelings of ambivalence in how to manage the situation. The hypoth esis based on the present pilot study, that women with NIHL are more l ikely to pass themselves off as normal hearing and therefore might be less likely to be reported in studies of NIHL than men, needs to be fu rther tested in a larger sample.