PREVALENCE RATES OF HEARING IMPAIRMENT AND COMORBID CONDITIONS IN OLDER-PEOPLE - THE VENETO STUDY

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the prevalence rate of hearing impairment, assessed by both the Sanders' questionnaire and the speech audiometry test, and its association with health-related factors in the older pop ulation of the Veneto region of Italy. DESIGN: A cross-sectional surve y. SETTING: A community-based population. PARTICIPANTS: 2398 noninstit utionalized individuals aged 65 years and older residing in the Veneto region of Italy. MEASUREMENTS: Prevalence rates of hearing impairment and odds ratios for its association with potential risk factors. MAIN RESULTS: The prevalence of self-reported hearing impairment at home w as 8.1% in men and 7.4% in women, and in a social environment it was 1 1.1% and 9.3%, respectively. Women were less likely to report hearing difficulties in both environments, and increased risks were found for depression, age, and poor self-rated health. Participants with diabete s or cognitive impairment had increased odds only at home, in contrast to people with a low education level, who had increased odds only in a social environment. The prevalence assessed by speech audiometry was 19% in both sexes. Increased age, diabetes, and poor self-rated healt h were associated with impaired speech intelligibility, cognitive impa irment was associated with 4-fold increased odds among past users of a lcohol, and men with a low education level were about three times as l ikely as others to have hearing impairment. CONCLUSIONS: Speech audiom etry testing detected a higher prevalence of hearing impairment than u se of a self-reported questionnaire and was associated with poor self- rated health, history of diabetes, and cognitive impairment among past users of alcohol and among men with low levels of education. The asso ciation between hearing deficit and depressive symptomatology was conf irmed only with self-reported hearing impairment.