CORRELATION BETWEEN SELF-HEARING ASSESSMENT AND STANDARD AUDIOMETRY AMONG ENT PATIENTS AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL IBADAN

Abstract

Background: Self- hearing rating is a very subjective tool used in assessing hearing depending on the respondents’ perception of their hearing 
level. This has been employed in screening the hearing of people but hardly considered for grading the severity of hearing loss.
Aim: To determine the correlation between self-hearing rating and standard audiometry grading of hearing loss among ENT patients at the 
University College Hospital, Ibadan.
Materials and methods: This was a hospital-based, cross-sectional study of ENT patients aged 10years and above at the audiology room in ENT 
clinic. Interviewer-assisted questionnaires were administered on all participants to obtain clinical information concerning demographics, clinical data, and self-hearing rating as “bad, fair, good and very good”. The standard audiometer was then used to assess their hearing and their 
hearing was graded with WHO 2008 grading of hearing loss (normal 0-25dB, mild HL 26-40dB, moderate HL 41-60dB, severe 61-80dB and 
profound deafness >81dB) 
Results: There were 60 patients (120 ears), age ≥10years, 41 + 17.6 years (mean ± SD), M: F is 1:1. The respondents’ self-hearing rating were 
4(6.7%) bad, 20(33.3%) fair, 23(38.3%) good, and 13(21.7%) very good. The pure tone average (Mean ± SD of PTA) of standard audiometry in 
the right and left ears respectively, for the self-hearing rating were; bad (81.8±12.5 dB, 66.6±38.4 dB), fair (52.6±29.0 dB, 55.4±28.9 dB), good 
(25.6±13.4 dB, 27.3±13.4 dB) and very good (21.6±7.8dB, 17.3±4.5 dB). There was a strong correlation between self-hearing rating and pure 
tone average of standard audiometer in both the right (RT) and left (LT) ears f-test for RT and LT (16.765 and 13.318 respectively) p=0.0001
Conclusion: Self-hearing rating was found to be a reliable data for hearing screening and was also predictive of the severity of hearing loss