Impacts of face coverings on communication: an indirect impact of COVID-19

Abstract

Objective

To understand the impact of face coverings on hearing and communication.

Design

An online survey consisting of closed-set and open-ended questions distributed within the UK to gain insights into experiences of interactions involving face coverings, and of the impact of face coverings on communication.

Sample

Four hundred and sixty members of the general public were recruited via snowball sampling. People with hearing loss were intentionally oversampled to more thoroughly assess the effect of face coverings in this group.

Results

With few exceptions, participants reported that face coverings negatively impacted hearing, understanding, engagement, and feelings of connection with the speaker. Impacts were greatest when communicating in medical situations. People with hearing loss were significantly more impacted than those without hearing loss. Face coverings impacted communication content, interpersonal connectedness, and willingness to engage in conversation; they increased anxiety and stress, and made communication fatiguing, frustrating and embarrassing – both as a speaker wearing a face covering, and when listening to someone else who is wearing one.

Conclusions

Face coverings have far-reaching impacts on communication for everyone, but especially for people with hearing loss. These findings illustrate the need for communication-friendly face-coverings, and emphasise the need to be communication-aware when wearing a face covering.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• face coverings
• masks
• hearing
• hearing loss
• communication
• lipreading
• visual cues
• facial expressions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.