Prevalence of Hearing Loss in the Maltese Adult Population
The following retrospective study was conducted to determine the prevalence of hearing loss (HL) in the Maltese Islands. It is estimated that this will be found to be between 1.4% and 15.2% of the population according to previous studies held by the Maltese National Census in 2011, estimations made by the World Health Organisation and published statistics by EuroStat. A significant correlation between HL and age of participants is expected. Correlations between HL and sex, region of inhabitancy and awareness of HL will also be calculated using Statistical Package for the Social Science. The data was collected by a privately owned company following the British Standard of Audiology’s procedure for Surveillance Audiometry and targeted a population of males and females 18 years and older. Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient showed a significant correlation between age and HL as hypothesised (0.578 with significance found at 0.01). All Pearson Chi-Square results however showed no significance on HL being correlated with sex, region, or awareness. On review, indications were found to further study the relationship between HL severity and sound pollution of varying localities. Awareness of HL requires further study more specific to this cause in order to extrapolate distinctive results. In conclusion, the prevalence of HL was found to be 2% of the population, thus confirming the hypothesis. Since participation was voluntary, the majority of which were elderly, the cohort did not produce a true random sample. A larger, more random sample would produce more accurate insight on HL prevalence in the Maltese Islands.