Health status and health-related quality of life preference-based outcomes of children who are aged 7 to 9 years and have bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to describe the health status and health-related quality of life preference-based outcomes of children with diagnosed bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment and a comparison group of English-speaking children with normal hearing.


METHODS
We studied 120 children who were aged 7 to 9 years and had bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment of moderate or greater severity, identified from a cohort of 156,733 children who were born in 8 districts of southern England, and 63 English-speaking children with normal hearing and the same place of birth and age at assessment. Principal caregivers were interviewed by using the Health Utilities Index Mark III questionnaire for proxy-assessed usual health status assessment. Levels of function within each of the 8 attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III (cognition, vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, emotion, and pain) were recorded.


RESULTS
Bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment is associated with significantly increased proportions of suboptimal levels of function and significantly lower single-attribute utility scores in 6 of the 8 attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III: vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, and cognition. Compared with the children with normal hearing, the mean multiattribute utility score for the children with hearing impairment was significantly lower for both the whole group and the moderate, severe, and profound severity subgroups. The differences in the distributions of the multiattribute utility scores between the children with hearing impairment as a group and the children with normal hearing and between each of the severity subgroups and the children with normal hearing all were statistically significant.


CONCLUSIONS
This study provides rigorous evidence of an association between bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment and diminished health status and health-related quality of life preference-based outcomes during midchildhood.
Petrou
Stavros
S
National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford (Old Road Campus), Headington, Oxford OX3 7LF, United Kingdom. stavros.petrou@npeu.ox.ac.uk
McCann
Donna
D
Law
Catherine M
CM
Watkin
Peter M
PM
Worsfold
Sarah
S
Kennedy
Colin R
CR
D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D006312:Hearing Loss, Bilateral / Q000150:complications / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D016896:Treatment Outcome