Comparison of self-reported and audiometrically-measured hearing loss in the Australian Defence Force

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the relationship between self-reported and audiometrically-measured hearing loss in a sample of Australian Defence Force personnel. Design: Responses to a question regarding hearing problems were compared with contemporaneous audiometric data. Study sample: 3335 members of the Australian Defence Force for whom anonymised medical records were available. Results: The sensitivity of self-report data to identify higher-frequency hearing loss was lower than sensitivity at other frequencies, and positive predictive values were moderate to poor at all frequencies. Performance characteristics of self-report compared with audiometric data also varied with age, sex, and rank. Conclusions: While self-report hearing loss data have good performance characteristics for estimating prevalence of hearing loss as defined by audiometric criteria, this study indicates that the usefulness of self-report data in identifying individuals with hearing loss may be limited in this population.

Key Words::

• Hearing loss
• Audiometry
• Self-report
• Military
• Sensitivity
• Specificity

Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based was undertaken as part of the Deployment Health Surveillance Program (DHSP) conducted by the Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health (CMVH) at the University of Queensland and the University of Adelaide. We thank the Australian Government Departments of Defence (DoD) and Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) for their strategic direction, and the DoD for project funding and access to data. We acknowledge the past members of the CMVH Core Research Team who contributed to the protocol for the DHSP. Particular thanks are expressed to Professor Annette Dobson from the University of Queensland School of Population Health and Mr Michael Waller from the University of Queensland Centre for Military and Veterans’ Health for helpful discussions. All study protocols were approved by the Australian Defence Human Research Ethics Committee (475/07 and 476/07), the University of Queensland Behavioural and SocialSciences Ethics Review Committee (2007000230 and 2007000231), and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs Human Research Ethics Committee (E07/002 and E07/007).

Declaration of interest: This project was funded by the Australian Government Department of Defence.