Comparing health care use and related costs between groups with and without hearing impairment.

This study aims to compare the use (and related costs) of different health care resources between groups of normally-hearing and hearing-impaired people. A distinction was made between hearing-related and other health care contacts. Data were collected at the baseline measurement of the national longitudinal study on hearing, and at each month during a subsequent period of six months. Hearing status was determined using an internet speech-in-noise test. The sample comprised 1295 normally-hearing and hearing-impaired subjects, aged 18-65 years. Adjusting for confounders, regression models showed that hearing-impaired respondents had significantly more contacts and higher costs for primary, secondary, and occupational care than normally-hearing respondents during the period under investigation. The differences were due to a larger number of health care contacts for which hearing impairment was the main motive to seek help. After excluding these contacts, the differences in health care use and costs between the groups were not significant. This suggests that besides hearing-related contacts, adults with hearing impairment do not make more use of health care resources than adults without hearing difficulties.