Comparison of the revised Hearing Performance Inventory with audiometric measures

Hearing Performance Inventory scores were correlated with sensitivity, discrimination, and sensitivity + discrimination measures for 39 subjects with noise-induced hearing loss. The highest correlation obtained (0.67) was with monosyllabic speech discrimination in noise. However, there were not significant differences in correlations among the three types of audiometric measures. The audiometric variables accounted for less than half of the variance in Hearing Performance Inventory scores; therefore they are inadequate in predicting the amount of self-perceived hearing difficulties. The need for a variety of hearing handicap scales is discussed.