Search | Search by Center | Search by Source | Keywords in Title
Alamgir H, Turner CA, Wong NJ, Cooper SP, Betancourt JA, Henry J, Senchak AJ, Hammill TL, Packer MD. The impact of hearing impairment and noise-induced hearing injury on quality of life in the active-duty military population: challenges to the study of this issue. Mil Med Res. 2016 Apr 12; 3:11.
The objectives of this research were to 1) summarize the available evidence on the impact of hearing loss on quality of life (QOL) among U.S. active-duty service members, 2) describe the QOL instruments that have been used to quantify the impact of hearing loss on quality of life, 3) examine national population-level secondary databases and report on their utility for studying the impact of hearing loss on QOL among active-duty service members, and 4) provide recommendations for future studies that seek to quantify the impact of hearing loss in this population. There is a lack of literature that addresses the intersection of hearing impairment, the military population, and quality of life measures. For audiological research, U.S. military personnel offer a unique research population, as they are exposed to noise levels and blast environments that are highly unusual in civilian work settings and can serve as a model population for studying the impact on QOL associated with these conditions. Our team recommends conducting a study on the active-duty service member population using a measurement instrument suitable for determining decreases in QOL specifically due to hearing loss.