Measurement and prediction of hearing loss in a nursing home

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the abilities of three paper-and-pencil tests to predict pure-tone hearing loss of nursing home residents. The three tests used were the staff version of the Nursing Home Hearing Handicap Index and two tests of mental status, the Mini Mental State and the Short Orientation-Memory-Concentration Test. Testing was done on the residents (n = 122) of a long-term, intermediate-care nursing home. In general, the residents who passed the hearing test (using a 40 dB HL criterion) performed better on all three tests than did the residents who failed the hearing test and the residents who could not be tested. The results of discriminant analyses showed that the factor of age predicted hearing loss with a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 35%. The factor of age in combination with question 4 of the SOMCT and question 10 of the NHHI improved specificity to 53%.