Muhammad Shahanizam, Shamsuddin
(2008)
The use of Malay version of hearing
handicap questionnaire on adults with
hearing impairment : case study.
Other.
Pusat Pengajian Sains Perubatan Universiti Sains Malaysia.
(Submitted)
Abstract
The measurement of hearing handicap is important as it leads to better management of
individual with hearing impairment. This research was conducted to study the hearing
handicaps of adults with hearing impairment in relation to the degree, type and duration of
hearing loss, by means of a simple questionnaire in Malay version. Ten unaided subjects
participated in this study. All of them were above ·18 years of age, had hearing impairment
and in good mental health. They were also willing to participate, able to answer and give
comments on the questionnaire. The study was conducted at Audiology Clinic, Hospital of
Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM), Kota Bharu, Kelantan. This research can be divided
into two phases: the validation of questionnaire phase and the actual data collection phase.
In the first phase, the hearing handicap questionnaire was constructed accordingly and then
validated via a pilot study. During the actual data collection phase, participants were
interviewed personally to flU in the questionnaire. In the questionnaire, ten most common
listening conditions were constructed (based on thorough interviews and opinions from
experts) and rating of 1-5 was used (I and 5 scale represents 'no problem' and 'severe
difficulty', respectively). Audiogram of each participant was obtained, prior to the
interview. Based on the audiogram, the participants were assigned into three groups:
unilateral hearing loss, bilateral symmetrical hearing loss and bilateral asymmetrical
groups. The result showed that the listening difficulties ranged from I 0% (I out of I 0
questions) to 20% (2 out of 10 questions) in the unilateral hearing loss group. For bilateral
symmetrical hearing loss group, the range of difficulties was from 80% (8 out of 10
questions) to 100% (10 out of 10 questions). All subjects in bilateral asymmetrical hearing
loss group reported 100% hearing difficulties (10 out of 10 questions). These findings are
in agreement with previous studies and support the claimed relation between the degree of
hearing loss and hearing handicap. This study also found that subjects with 'identical'
hearing loss showed different degree of hearing handicap (i.e. the hearing handicap is
unique). This suggests a management strategy to be 'specific' for each person with hearing
loss. This study demonstrates some values of having a Malay version of hearing handicap
questionnaire to measure the listening difficulties among hearing-impaired individuals.
However, further studies (with bigger sample size) are required to determine the usefulness
of this hearing handicap questionnaire, especially for clinical use.
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