Learning Objectives: To identify the factors that affect attitudes towards unilateral hearing loss.
Background: The present study is aimed at investigating if attitudes towards loss of hearing (ALHQ) questionnaire subscale scores in unilateral hearing loss participants are comparable to the established normative data, and also to study if age, gender, duration, tinnitus, cause and degree of hearing loss have any effect on their attitudes.
Participants: A total of 29 unilateral sensorineural hearing loss case files from both genders (11 male, 18 female) with a mean age of 56.3 years were reviewed retrospectively.
Results: No significant difference in the mean score was observed between the present study and the normative data. There was a significant effect of tinnitus & cause of hearing loss on denial of hearing loss subscale and significant association between duration of hearing loss and negative coping strategies subscale. No significant effect of age, gender and degree of hearing loss was noticed on any subscales.
Conclusion: These results suggest that the identification of such factors during routine audiological evaluation can assist the clinician in planning appropriate intervention strategies.