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Dates: 2007
Funding: Medical Research Council
Collaborators: Donna McCann, Sarah Worsfold and Colin Kennedy, University of Southampton, Catherine Law, Institute of Child Health, and Peter Watkin, Department of Audiology, Whipps Cross University Hospital
Information: Stavros Petrou

The objective of this study was to describe the health status and health-related quality of life preference-based outcomes of children with diagnosed bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment and a comparison group of English-speaking normally hearing children.

We studied 120 children aged 7-9 years with bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment of moderate or greater severity, identified from a cohort of 156,733 children born in eight districts of southern England, and 63 English-speaking children with normal hearing with the same place of birth and age at assessment. Principal caregivers were interviewed using the Health Utilities Index Mark III questionnaire for proxy-assessed usual health status assessment. Levels of function within each of the eight attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III (cognition, vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, emotion and pain) were recorded. Responses to the Health Utilities Index Mark III health status classification system were converted into single-attribute and multiplicative multi-attribute utility scores using published utility functions.

The study revealed that bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment is associated with significantly increased proportions of sub-optimal levels of function and significantly lower single-attribute utility scores in six of the eight attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III; vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity and cognition (P0.01). Compared with the normally hearing children, the mean multi-attribute utility score for the hearing impaired children was significantly lower both for the whole group (0.920 vs 0.626, difference 0.294, P<0.001) and also for the moderate, severe and profound severity subgroups (P<0.001). The difference in the distributions of the multi-attribute utility scores between the hearing impaired children as a group and the normally hearing children and between each of the severity subgroups and the normally hearing children were all statistically significant (P<0.001).

We conclude that this study provides rigorous evidence of an association between bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment and diminished health status and health-related quality of life preference-based outcomes during mid-childhood. The data provide a basis for informing service provision and for evaluating the outcomes of preventive and treatment interventions in this area.

Publications

Petrou S, McCann D, Law CM, Watkin P, Worsfold S, Kennedy CR (2007). Health status and health-related quality of life of children aged 7-9 years with permanent childhood hearing impairment. Pediatrics 2007; 120(5): 1044-1052.