Association Between Hearing Loss and Multiple Negative Emotional States in the US Hispanic Population

Hearing loss (HL) has been linked to commonly studied detrimental mood states, such as loneliness and depression. However, its relationship with other negative emotions remained largely unstudied. We explore the association between HL and anxiety, anger, hostility, poor self-esteem, and pessimism in a national cohort of US Hispanic adults.

Cross-sectional study.

Multicentered US national epidemiologic study (Hispanic Community Health Study).

Subjects were ages 18 to 75 with completed audiometric and emotional survey data. Multivariable regressions controlling for age, gender, and education were conducted to analyze the association between HL, measured by 4-frequency pure-tone average (PTA), and emotional states. States included anxiety (Spielberger Trait Anxiety Scale-10), anger (Spielberger Trait Anger Scale), hostility (Cook Medley Cynicism Scale-13), poor self-esteem (Self-Esteem Scale-10), and pessimism (Revised Life Orientation Test).

A total of 4120 to 4341 participants met inclusion criteria, depending on the specific survey; the average age was 46.7 years (standard deviation [SD] = 13.7), and the average PTA was 13.8 dB (SD = 10.1). Controlling for age, gender, and education, HL was associated with all outcomes. Specifically, for every 10 dB worsening in HL, the anxiety score worsened by 0.41 (0.23-0.60), the anger score worsened by 0.40 (0.22-0.58), the hostility score worsened by 0.16 (0.04-0.27), the self-esteem score worsened by 0.25 (0.12-0.38), and the pessimism score worsened by 0.17 (0.04-0.30) (all p < .01).

HL is related to numerous negative mood states beyond loneliness and depression. This includes worse anxiety, anger, hostility, self-esteem, and pessimism. Future studies should investigate whether treating HL improves negative emotional states.