Self-reported hearing difficulties are associated with loneliness, depression and cognitive dysfunction during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective

To investigate whether hearing difficulties exacerbate the damaging effects of enforced social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic on isolation and loneliness, and lead to accelerated mental health issues and cognitive dysfunction.

Design

Rapid online survey. Participants completed a series of online questionnaires regarding hearing ability, socialisation (pre- and during-pandemic), loneliness, anxiety, depression and cognitive function.

Study sample

A total of 80 participants over the age of 70 with access to the internet.

Results

There was a significant reduction in socialisation levels from pre-pandemic in this population. Hearing difficulties were significantly associated with greater levels of loneliness, depression and self-perceived cognitive dysfunction after controlling for age, gender, and level of education. Additionally, compared to pre-pandemic, people with hearing difficulties had increased odds of reporting worsened anxiety, depression, and memory during the COVID-19 pandemic, although only the effect of hearing difficulties on the change in memory reached statistical significance after controlling for age, gender, and level of education.

Conclusions

The worse the self-reported hearing abilities are, the greater the negative impact of enforced social distancing on depression, loneliness and cognitive function.

Keywords:

• Hearing difficulties
• mental health
• cognitive function
• COVID-19
• social distancing

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the editorial team for expediting the review process and providing useful comments. The authors thank Andrew Gilchrist for providing technological support. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 REDCap is a secure, web-based software platform designed to support data capture for research studies, providing: 1) an intuitive interface for validated data capture; 2) audit trails for tracking data manipulation and export procedures; 3) automated export procedures for seamless data downloads to common statistical packages; and 4) procedures for data integration and interoperability with external sources.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by a Deafness Support Network (DSN) fellowship grant to JL. This work was supported by the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and NIHR Sheffield Biomedical Research Centre (Translational Neuroscience).