Association of Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss With Affective Disorders.

Importance: Patients with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSNHL) often experience permanent hearing impairment, which could result in psychological perturbations. However, the relationship between ISSNHL and affective disorders, including depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, has not been fully evaluated.

Objective: To investigate the potential relationship between ISSNHL and affective disorders using nationwide representative cohort sample data.

Design, Setting, and Participants: This study used a nationwide propensity score-matched cohort sample from the Korean National Health Insurance Service database from 2002 through 2013, which comprises data from approximately 1 million patients. The study included 1425 patients with ISSNHL and 7125 individuals without ISSNHL who were matched using propensity score matching, according to sociodemographic factors and enrollment year.

Main Outcomes and Measures: Survival analysis, the log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to calculate the incidence, survival rate, and hazard ratio (HR) of developing affective disorders (anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder) for each group.

Results: Of the total study population of 8550 (51.5% female), 961 developed affective disorders during the 11-year follow-up: 225 in the ISSNHL group (15.8%) and 736 in the comparison group (10.3%). We examined a total of 96 885.5 person-years (81 177.4 person-years in the comparison group and 15 708.1 person-years in the ISSNHL group). The incidence of affective disorders was 14.3 per 1000 person-years in the ISSNHL group and 9.1 per 1000 person-years in the comparison group. After adjustment for other factors, individuals with ISSNHL developed affective disorders more frequently than those in the comparison group (HR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.30-1.75). Among the affective disorders, the HR of developing depression (HR, 1.66; 95% CI, 1.44-1.91) and anxiety disorder (HR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.56-2.05) but not bipolar disorder (HR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.54-1.70), was significantly greater in patients with ISSNHL.

Conclusions and Relevance: This cohort study suggests that ISSNHL is associated with an increased incidence of affective disorders, specifically depression and anxiety. Therefore, these findings suggest that clinicians should monitor patients with ISSNHL carefully, and take specific precautions to reduce their risk of depression and anxiety disorder.