Screening for hearing loss in the Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking elderly using tablet-based pure-tone and word-in-noise test

Abstract

Objective: The present study aimed to establish the test-retest reliability and validity of a tablet-based automated pure-tone screening test and a word-in-noise test as hearing screening tools for older Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking adults.

Design and study sample: It was a cross-sectional within-subject study. One hundred and thirty-two older adults participated in this study, and 112 of them completed the automated pure-tone screening test, word-in-noise test, and conventional pure-tone audiometry. Pure-tone threshold of 40 dB HL at each of the tested frequencies including 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz, obtained with conventional pure-tone audiometry was set as the pass/refer criterion, for the calculation of sensitivity and specificity of the tablet-based screening tools.

Results: The tablet-based automated pure-tone screening test yielded a sensitivity of 0.93 and specificity of 0.82, while the word-in-noise test yielded a sensitivity of 0.81 and specificity of 0.70 with the cut-off chosen as a speech reception threshold of −3.5 dB signal-to-noise ratio. Both tests require around 3 minutes to be completed on both ears.

Conclusions: The tablet-based pure-tone test and word-in-noise test are reliable and valid to be used as screening tools for hearing loss in the Hong Kong Cantonese-speaking elderly.

Keywords:

• Automated pure-tone screening
• word-in-noise test
• hearing loss in elderly
• Cantonese

Acknowledgments

The authors sincerely thank Mr. Andy Cheng, Mr. Dick Cheung, and Mr. Willie Ip from Ximplar Limited for their technical support in software development. Gratitude is also extended to Mr. Yuen Ka Kin from Mrs. Wong Tung Yuen District Elderly Community Centre (Pok Oi Hospital) for his assistance in subject recruitment, and Miss Yeung Ka Ki for her assistance in data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the Research Seed Fund of the Education University of Hong Kong.