Impact of Hearing Aid Usage on Emotional and Social Skills in Persons With Severe to Profound Hearing Loss

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Severe to profound hearing loss impacts the capacity for verbal communication as well as the social, emotional, and overall quality of life; however, the association between socio-emotional rehabilitation and post-hearing aid use is not widely explored. This study aimed to investigate the socio-emotional change in post-hearing aid fitted individuals with severe to profound hearing loss. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 60 individuals comprised of 15 females and 45 males with severe to profound hearing loss within the age range of 40-60 years (mean age and standard deviation of 53.4±6.1), participated in this study. Participants were divided into two categories with a 10-year age interval i.e., 40–50 and 51-60 years. These participants were equally divided into hearing aid user (HAU) and non-hearing aid user (NHAU) groups. The hearing handicapped inventory for the adults-short version (HHIA-S) adapted from Weinstein & Ventry (1983) was used in this study. RESULTS: The mean social score of all the participants was significantly higher than the mean emotional score. However, no such advantage was observed between the HAU and NHAU groups. The mean social score of females in the HAU category was significantly higher than males. The mean social and emotional scores were also compared across two age categories in the age range of 40-50 and 51-60 years and revealed no significant difference between mean social and emotional score across the age categories (p=0.026). CONCLUSIONS: In individuals with severe to profound hearing loss, social rehabilitation occurs quicker than emotional. In the HAU group, socialization occurred faster in females than males. These findings suggest that a customized counselling should be developed for the social and emotional wellbeing as these two parameters improve distinctly.