[Hearing impairment in nursing home patients not easily screened when relying on nurses' and patients' opinions].

OBJECTIVE

To assess the diagnostic value of the opinion of the nursing staff and the patients themselves about hearing impairment of somatic nursing home patients.

DESIGN

Descriptive.

SETTING

Nursing Home and Rehabilitation Centre Amstelhof in Amsterdam.

METHOD

All newly admitted patients in the period October 1989 to mid-May 1990 were asked to give an opinion about their hearing; the nursing staff were asked for an opinion as well. The results of these two measurements were compared with the results of the screening audiogram, used as the gold standard. For both the nursing staff opinion and the patients' opinion sensitivity, specificity and predictive values were calculated.

RESULTS

79 patients were included in this study. The sensitivity of the opinion of the nursing staff was 54%, the specificity 80%. The predictive values of the positive and negative test results were 59% and 76% respectively. The sensitivity of the patients' opinion was 68% and the specificity 80%. The predictive value of the positive test result was 65% and that of the negative test result 82%.

CONCLUSION

Neither the opinion of the nursing staff, nor the opinion of the patients were valid methods to identify hearing-impaired nursing home patients. We recommended paying more attention to tracing hearing impairment in nursing home patients: the nursing staff should be trained and a screening audiogram should be made of all patients admitted.