Self-Reported Listening-Related Effort and Fatigue in Hearing-Impaired Adults

Objective: Hearing loss may increase listening-related effort and fatigue due to the increased mental exertion required to attend to, and understand, an auditory message. Because there have been few attempts to quantify self-reported effort and fatigue in listeners with hearing loss, that was the aim of the present study. Design: Participants included three groups of hearing-impaired adults: (1) hearing aid users (HA, n = 50; 31 male, 19 female; age range = 55 to 85 years); (2) cochlear implant users (CI, n = 50; 26 male, 24 female; age range = 55 to 80 years); and (3) single sided deafness (SSD, n = 50; 30 male, 20 female; age range = 58 to 80 years). There was also a control group of adults who passed a hearing screen at 30 dB HL at the frequencies: 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz in both ears (n = 50; 22 male, 28 female; age range = 55 to 78 years). The fatigue assessment scale (FAS) was used to quantify fatigue. The FAS is a generic standardized self-report scale consisting of 10 items that are scored using a five-point Likert scale. An effort assessment scale (EAS), developed for the present study, consisted of six questions with responses provided on a visual analog scale that ranges from 0 to 10. Results: All hearing-impaired groups reported significantly increased effort and fatigue compared to the control group. The median fatigue score for the control group was 14 and around 22 for the three hearing-impaired groups. The median effort score for the control group was 20 and around 70 for the three hearing-impaired groups. There was no significant difference in mean effort or fatigue between the three groups of hearing-impaired adults. There was a weak positive correlation between fatigue and effort scores (r = 0.40, p

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