Prevalence and Characteristics of Veterans with Severe Hearing Loss: A Descriptive Study.

ABSTRACT: Hearing loss is common among Veterans, and extensive hearing care resources are prioritized within the Veterans Administration (VA). Severe hearing loss poses unique communication challenges with speech understanding that may not be overcome with amplification. We analyzed data from the VA Audiometric Repository between 2005 and 2017 and the relationship between hearing loss severity with speech recognition scores. We hypothesized that a significant subset of Veterans with severe or worse hearing loss would have poor unaided speech perception outcomes even with adequate audibility. Sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities were compiled using electronic medical records as was self-report measures of hearing disability. We identified a cohort of 137,500 unique Veterans with 232,789

SUBMITTER: Friedmann DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11311185 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature