title: Associations between the probabilities of frequency-specific hearing loss and unaided APHAB scores.
abstract: The Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) questionnaire reports subjective hearing impairments in four typical conditions. We investigated the association between the frequency-specific probability of hearing loss and scores from the unaided APHAB (APHABu) to determine whether the APHABucould be useful in primary diagnoses of hearing loss, in addition to pure tone and speech audiometry. This retrospective study included database records from 6558 patients (average age 69.0 years). We employed a multivariate generalised linear mixed model to analyse the probabilities of hearing losses (severity range 20-75 dB, evaluated in 5-dB steps), measured at different frequencies (0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, and 8.0 kHz), for nearly all combinations of APHABusubscale scores (subscale scores from 20 to 80%, evaluated in steps of 5%). We calculated the probability of hearing loss for 28,561 different combinations of APHABusubscale scores (results available online). In general, the probability of hearing loss was positively associated with the combined APHABuscore (i.e. increasing probability with increasing scores). However, this association was negative at one frequency (8 kHz). The highest probabilities were for a hearing loss of 45 dB at test frequency 2.0 kHz, but with a wide spreading. We showed that the APHABusubscale scores were associated with the probability of hearing loss measured with audiometry. This information could enrich the expert's evaluation of the subject's hearing loss, and it might help resolve suspicious cases of aggravation. The 0.5 and 8.0 kHz frequencies influenced hearing loss less than the frequencies in-between, and 2.0 kHz was most influential on intermediate degree hearing loss (around 45 dB), which corresponded to the frequency-dependence of speech intelligibility measured with speech audiometry.
authors.affiliation: Scientific Institute for Applied ENT-Research of the German Professional Association of ENT-Surgeons, Maienbeeck 1, 24576, Bad Bramstedt, Germany. loehler@hno-aertze.de.|Department of ENT-Surgery, Universital Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Luebeck, Lübeck, Germany. loehler@hno-aertze.de.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Löhler
authors.affiliation: Department of ENT-Surgery, Universital Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Luebeck, Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wollenberg
authors.affiliation: Institute for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Documentations, Universital Hospital Jena, Campus Luebeck, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schlattmann
authors.affiliation: Institute for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Documentations, Universital Hospital Jena, Campus Luebeck, Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hoang
authors.affiliation: Section of Phoniatrics and Pedaudiology in the Department of ENT-Surgery, Universital Hospital of Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Luebeck, Lübeck, Germany.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schönweiler
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D001299:Audiometry; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011336:Probability; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: APHAB; Frequency-specific hearing loss; Hearing aid fitting; Hearing loss; Probability of hearing loss; Unaided APHAB