Influence of Personality and Attitude Towards Loss of Hearing on Hearing Aid Outcome in Older Adults with Hearing Loss.

Older adults with hearing loss face many challenges in day to day communication. Although hearing aids come with many technologies and features, the use and benefit are still not as expected. The possible non-audiological factors that can influence the benefit from hearing aid remain uncertain. The present study focuses on assessing the influence of attitude towards loss of hearing and personality on the perceived hearing aid benefit in older adults. Attitude towards loss of hearing questionnaire (ALHQ) and Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) were administered on 42 older adults having mild to moderately-severe sensorineural hearing loss, who were naïve users of hearing aid. Two months later, International Outcome Inventory-Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) scores and the number of hours of hearing aid use through data logging of hearing aid were noted. Individuals with extrovert trait of personality and with acceptance towards hearing loss had higher number of hours of hearing aid usage and higher IOI-HA scores. Discussion: The individuals with extrovert personality, positive attitude towards hearing loss tends to depend on the amplification device for better communication and involve themselves more in social interaction. Poor acceptance and negative social or emotional reaction towards hearing loss can have a greater impact on hearing aid use and benefit. The present study highlights the importance of assessing the attitude and personality in older adults with hearing loss before fitting the hearing aid. These measures can be focussed during counselling about the realistic expectation of outcome from the hearing aid.