G. Andersson et al., DISPOSITIONAL OPTIMISM, DYSPHORIA, HEALTH, AND COPING WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT IN ELDERLY ADULTS, Audiology, 34(2), 1995, pp. 76-84
Sixty-eight elderly hearing impaired subjects were interviewed and com
pleted self-report measures on hearing disability, dispositional optim
ism, dysphoria, and general health. The measures used were the Hearing
Coping Assessment (HCA), the Hearing Questions (HQ), the Life Orienta
tion Test (LOT), The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and a subscale f
rom the Goteborg Quality of Life (GQL). Psychometric analyses of HCA,
HQ, LOT, BDI, and GQL revealed high reliability in terms of Cronbach's
Alpha and split-half r's. Significant intercorrelations were found be
tween several measures, but not with pure-tone audiometry(0.5, 1, 2, a
nd 3 kHz). Cluster analysis was used to identify subgroups in the samp
le. As a result three clusters were identified interpreted as 'high co
pers', 'copers with moderate psychological and somatic complaints', an
d 'low copers'. Results from the cluster analyses were confirmed by us
ing two different clustering methods and by between-cluster comparison
s on the HQ, which had not been used to obtain the clusters.