Prevalence of Hearing Impairment and Hearing Complaints in Older Adults: A Study in General Practice

In one general practice, 660 people aged 60 years or over werescreened by means of pure tone audiometry and a specific questionnaireto assess the prevalence of hearing impairment and hearing complaints.Hearing impairment was defined as an average loss of 35 dB ormore in the 1, 2 and 4 kHz frequencies in one or both ears.In total, 37.4% (95% Cl, 33.3–41.1%) of the participantswas hearing impaired. The prevalence was higher in men (55.1%)than in women (44.9%) and clearly increased with age in bothsexes. The prevalence of hearing complaints in terms of hearingdifficulties and/or tinnitus, was 37.3% (95% Cl, 33.6–41.0%),and increased with age, especially in women. Of the subjectswith hearing impairment, 64.4% reported hearing complaints.Of the subjects without hearing impairment, 21.1% experiencedhearing complaints. This study suggests that screening olderadults with relatively simple methods, may identify a largeproportion of men and women in general practice with hearingproblems. Providing information to both patients and generalpractitioners about the possibilities of hearing improvementis a crucial step in making people become more aware of hearingproblems. This could ultimately lead to improvement of the qualityof life of older men and women with hearing problems.