Validation of self-reported hearing loss among adult Croatians: the performance of the Hearing Self-Assessment Questionnaire against audiometric evaluation.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to validate the performance of a self-assessment hearing loss screening tool for adults against audiometric evaluation. Different audiological measurements were compared with the results of a 10-item Likert-type questionnaire named the Hearing Self-Assessment Questionnaire (HSAQ) to investigate its psychometric characteristics.

DESIGN: Participants underwent audiological evaluation and completed the HSAQ. The screening performance of the HSAQ was evaluated against three definitions of hearing loss: better-ear mean pure-tone thresholds >25 dBHL at 500-2000 Hz, 500-4000 Hz and 1000-4000 Hz.

STUDY SAMPLE: The study enrolled 112 participants aged between 24 and 88 years (mean age 56.24 years, ±12.92).

RESULTS: The HSAQ had high Cronbach's alpha and intraclass correlation coefficients and showed construct, concurrent and discriminant validity. Its screening characteristics proved very good or excellent, depending on the definition of hearing loss. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed excellent accuracy of the HSAQ in the identification of better-ear high-frequency hearing loss and better-ear speech-frequency hearing loss, with respect to different cut-off points.

CONCLUSIONS: Given the ease with which it is administered and its good screening properties, the HSAQ can be useful in deciding whether adult clients should be referred to audiological evaluation due to reasonable suspicion of hypoacusis.