Quality of life of Elderly People with Hearing Impairment

Background:Hearing impairment is the most common sensory deficit and a severe social and health problemthat can impair the exchange of information.It significantly impacts everyday life causing loneliness, isolation, and frustration, as well as communication disorders. So,it affects thequality of life.Aim:Determine the quality of life of elderly people with hearing impairment. Design:Descriptive Correlationaldesign.Subject:A purposive sample of 270 elderly people with hearing impairment attendedthe auditoryOutpatient clinics at AshmounGeneral Hospital affiliated toAshmoun district and ShebinElkom university Hospital at ShebinElkom district.Data CollectionInstruments:TwoInstrumentswere used to collect the data Instrument I:Structuredinterview that included two parts.Part1 concerned with socioeconomic demographic data, part2 included older people quality of life questionnaire with 35 items.Instrument II: Hearing handicap inventory for elderly screening version scale (HHIE-S). Results: The study revealed that85.2% of elderly had significant hearing impairment based on (HHIE-S); and more than two thirds of them were suffering from severe to moderate hearing impairment and the least frequency was mild and profound according to their Audiometry; a negative correlation between HHIE-S and all quality of life domains and grand total quality of life score. More than half of elderlyperceived theirquality of life as poor. Conclusion:Every domain of quality of lifeas well as total quality of life affected negatively by severity of hearing impairment,indicating that quality of life gets poor with severity of hearing impairment. Recommendations:Early hearing screening withhigh quality screening protocols in the primary care setting and health education for elderly to increase awareness about periodic hearing examination.