Bullying, Peer Victimization, and Quality of Life in Pediatric Hearing Loss Patients: A Pilot Study

Objective: The primary objective of this pilot study is to describe the impacts of bullying and peer victimization (BPV) in children with hearing loss. Study design: Prospective clinical survey study. Methods: This pilot study enrolled children between 8 and 18 years who were administered validated surveys at an outpatient clinic between July 2020 and March 2022. Surveys included health-related quality of life questionnaires (PedsQL and EQ-5D-Y), along with bullying and peer victimization questionnaires ("My Life in School" and the multidimensional peer victimization scale). Responses were scored with multivariate analysis. Clinical histories and active ICD-10 codes were also collected. Results: About 105 patients were recruited with a mean age of 13.1 years (SD = 3.15) and hearing loss (n = 30) among the top otolaryngological diagnoses. When surveying patients with hearing loss, 50.0% (n = 15) actively used a hearing aid device. Children (ages 8-12 years) with hearing loss reported a significantly lower psychosocial health-related quality of life than their peers without hearing loss (P =.007), though this was not the case for adolescents (ages 13-18 years) with hearing loss (P =.099). These trends did not change significantly before or after students resumed in-person classes. Children who wore hearing aids did not report a different BPV level than their peers. Conclusion: In this small sample of school-aged children, any hearing loss, even with mild severity, was associated with diminished health-related quality of life; however, this was unrelated to hearing aid use. Wearing a hearing aid did not appear to be linked to higher bullying and peer victimization rates. Along with further studies on BPV with larger sample sizes, the findings in this study may help physicians counsel parents and children on the psychosocial aspects of hearing loss treatment and guide care decisions. Level of Evidence: 3