Prevalence & characteristics of severe and profound hearing loss in adults in a UK National Health Service clinic

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of severe and profound hearing loss in a clinical population and to report the audiological and hearing-aid characteristics for this group, as well as outcome measures from use of hearing aids. Design: A retrospective observational study initially, followed by a postal Glasgow health status inventory (GHSI) to establish the patients' functional outcomes. Study sample: A clinical database of 32 781 cases was interrogated from which 2199 cases of severe /profound hearing loss were identified. From these, an adult sample stratified in terms of age and gender of n = 302 was contacted. Results: An estimated 6.7% of the local clinical population and 0.7% of the general population were found to have hearing > 70 dB averaged over 0.5, 1, and 2 kHz. Most patients were fitted with bilateral hearing aids, using a non-linear prescription, and as a group they reported a high level of social support. Conclusions: This study has estimated the prevalence of severe and profound hearing loss as 6.7% of the clinical population, and 0.7% of the general population. This is consistent with previous work, although it probably underestimates the prevalence. Further work is indicated to strengthen the estimate.