Quality-of-life changes and hearing impairment. A randomized trial

Objective: To assess whether hearing aids improve the quality of life of elderly persons with hearing loss. Setting: Primary care clinics at a Bureau of Veterans Affairs hospital. Patients: One hundred and ninety-four elderly veterans who were identified as being hearing impaired from a screening survey involving 771 consecutive clinic patients. Of the original 194, 188 (97%) completed the trial. Intervention: Subjects were randomly assigned to either receive a hearing aid (n = 95) or join a waiting list (n = 99). Main Endpoints: A comprehensive battery of disease-specific and generic quality-of-life measures were administered at baseline, 6 weeks, and 4 months. Measurements and Main Results: Persons assigned to the two groups were similar in age, ethnicity, education, marital status, occupation, and comorbid diseases. At baseline, 82 % of subjects reported adverse effects on quality of life due to hearing impair-ment, and 24 % were depressed. At follow-up, a significant change in score improvements for social and emotional function (34.0; 95