On the relationship between functional hearing and depression

Abstract

Objective: To establish the effect of self-rated and measured functional hearing on depression, taking age and gender into account. Additionally, the study investigates if hearing-aid usage mitigates the effect, and if other physical health problems and social engagement confound it. Design: Cross-sectional data from the UK Biobank resource, including subjective and behavioural measures of functional hearing and multifactorial measures of depressive episodes and symptoms, were accessed and analysed using multi-regression analyses. Study sample: Over 100 000 community-dwelling, 39–70 year-old volunteers. Results: Irrespective of measurement method, poor functional hearing was significantly (p < 0.001) associated with higher levels of depressive episodes (≤ 0.16 factor scores) and depressive symptoms (≤ 0.30 factor scores) when controlling for age and gender. Associations were stronger for subjective reports, for depressive symptoms, and the younger participants. Females generally reported higher levels of depression. Hearing-aid usage did not show a mitigating effect on the associations. Other physical health problems particularly partially confounded the effects. Conclusion: Data support an association between functional hearing and depression that is stronger in the younger participants (40–49 years old) and for milder depression. The association was not alleviated by hearing-aid usage, but was partially confounded by other physical health problems.

Key Words::

• Hearing
• hearing aids
• mental health
• depression
• epidemiology

Acknowledgements

This research has been conducted using the UK Biobank Resource, and was partly supported by the Department of Health and Aging in Australia and by a Linnaeus centre of excellence grant to Linköping University from the Swedish Research Council. Preliminary data from this study were presented at the XXXII World Congress of Audiology, Brisbane, 3–7 May 2014.

Declaration of interest: There are no conflicts of interest to be declared.