Title: | Correlates of Hearing Aid Use in UK Adults |
Journal: | Ear & Hearing |
Published: | 1 Jan 2019 |
Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30664127/ |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1097/aud.0000000000000695 |
Title: | Correlates of Hearing Aid Use in UK Adults |
Journal: | Ear & Hearing |
Published: | 1 Jan 2019 |
Pubmed: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30664127/ |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1097/aud.0000000000000695 |
WARNING: the interactive features of this website use CSS3, which your browser does not support. To use the full features of this website, please update your browser.
DESIGN: The research was conducted using the UK Biobank Resource. A cross-sectional analysis of hearing aid use was conducted on 18,730 participants aged 40 to 69 years old with poor hearing, based on performance on the Digit Triplet test.
RESULTS: Nine percent of adults with poor hearing in the cross-sectional sample reported using a hearing aid. The strongest correlate of hearing aid use was self-reported hearing difficulties (odds ratio [OR] = 110.69 [95% confidence interval {CI} = 65.12 to 188.16]). Individuals who were older were more likely to use a hearing aid: for each additional year of age, individuals were 5% more likely to use a hearing aid (95% CI = 1.04 to 1.06). People with tinnitus (OR = 1.43 [95% CI = 1.26 to 1.63]) and people with a chronic illness (OR = 1.97 [95% CI = 1.71 to 2.28]) were more likely to use a hearing aid. Those who reported an ethnic minority background (OR = 0.53 [95% CI = 0.39 to 0.72]) and those who lived alone (OR = 0.80 [95% CI = 0.68 to 0.94]) were less likely to use a hearing aid.
CONCLUSIONS: Interventions to promote hearing aid use need to focus on addressing reasons for the perception of hearing difficulties and how to promote hearing aid use. Interventions to promote hearing aid use may need to target demographic groups that are particularly unlikely to use hearing aids, including younger adults, those who live alone and those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
Enabling scientific discoveries that improve human health