Hearing loss is independently associated with a higher risk of depression among older adults, according to a Korean study. The study confirms findings in earlier studies that also found a relationship between depression and hearing loss.
The study used data from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-Senior Cohort and analysed data from 254,466 older adults who underwent at least one health screening between 2003 and 2019.
The Korea National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) provides mandatory health insurance to 97% of all Korean citizens and collects information related to health screening results, hospital utilisations, treatments and pharmaceutical prescriptions.
The study found that during 3,417,682 person-years of follow-up investigation, hearing loss was associated with a higher risk of incident depression. The study also found that participants younger than 65 years had a higher risk of depression than those aged 65 or above.
In the study, the group of participants with hearing loss had a higher proportion of men, patients with hypertension and patients with diabetes than the non-impairment group.
The study, "Association Between Hearing Impairment and Incident Depression: A Nationwide Follow-up Study", was published in the journal The Laryngoscope
Sources: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov and the Laryngoscope
Originally published on hear-it.org
