Fatigue and Hearing Loss
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Fatigue and Hearing Loss
IRAS ID
232067
Contact name
Graham Naylor
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Research and Innovation, University of Nottingham
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 3 months, 1 days
Research summary
Hearing Impairment leads to increased listening effort which could result in short and/or long term fatigue. Previous research has shown that people with a hearing loss score higher on fatigue questionnaires than people without a hearing loss. Hearing Aid fitting has been shown to reduce fatigue in an objective measurement study, however no reduction has been shown using subjective measurement. To examine the effect of hearing aid fitting on fatigue a longitudinal study will be conducted. A battery of questionnaires measuring fatigue, listening effort, daily activity, need for cognition and hearing handicap as well as an objective hearing test will be conducted at 4 time points. These time points will be 2 weeks before hearing aid fitting, 2 weeks after, 3 months after and 6 months after. A control group with no change in hearing aid status will also be measured at these time points. The general hypothesis is that hearing aid fitting will reduce fatigue. More specifically it is expected that fatigue will increase immediately after fitting and then decrease by the 6 month time point. It is also expected that social activity levels will increase after fitting and that individual differences in this activity change will explain some of the differences between participants in rate of change in fatigue. It is predicted that high Need for Cognition and Hearing Handicap scores will increase the amount of change in fatigue for the intervention group. 57 participants will be recruited for each group, each participant being involved in the study for no more than 7 months with the study running for a total of 15 months. The data will be analysed using multi-level analysis.
REC name
West of Scotland REC 3
REC reference
18/WS/0030
Date of REC Opinion
19 Mar 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion