Hearing loss impacts on the use of community and informal supports

Objective: the aim of this study is to estimate the cross-sectional and longitudinal impact of hearing loss on use of community support services and reliance on non-spouse family/friends among older people. Methods: Blue Mountains Hearing Study participants (n=2,956) were assessed for hearing impairment by audiologists in sound-treated booths. Participants were classified as hearing impaired if PTA_0.5-4kHz >25dB HL. Use of services and non-spouse family/friend support was assessed cross-sectionally. Incident use was assessed among survivors at the 5-year follow-up (n=1,457). Results: a significant cross-sectional association between hearing loss (>25dB HL) and use of community support services was observed after adjusting for age, sex, living status, self-rated poor health, self-reported hospital admissions, disability in walking and best-corrected visual impairment [odds ratio (OR) 2.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.15-3.90]. Participants with hearing loss who never used a hearing aid were twice as likely to use formal supports as participants without hearing loss (multivariate-adjusted OR 2.25, 95% CI 1.19-4.24). Hearing loss increased the incident need for non-spouse family/friend support or community services (multivariate-adjusted OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.02-2.18). Conclusions: after adjusting for confounding factors, hearing impairment negatively impacted on the independence of older persons by increasing reliance on community or family support.