Health Status and Health-Related Quality of Life Preference-Based Outcomes of Children Who Are Aged 7 to 9 Years and Have Bilateral Permanent Childhood Hearing Impairment

Abstract

OBJECTIVE. 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 children with normal hearing. METHODS. We studied 120 children who were aged 7 to 9 years and had bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment of moderate or greater severity, identified from a cohort of 156733 children who were born in 8 districts of southern England, and 63 English-speaking children with normal hearing and the same place of birth and age at assessment. Principal caregivers were interviewed by using the Health Utilities Index Mark III questionnaire for proxy-assessed usual health status assessment. Levels of function within each of the 8 attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III (cognition, vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, emotion, and pain) were recorded. RESULTS. Bilateral permanent childhood hearing impairment is associated with significantly increased proportions of suboptimal levels of function and significantly lower single-attribute utility scores in 6 of the 8 attributes of the Health Utilities Index Mark III: vision, hearing, speech, ambulation, dexterity, and cognition. Compared with the children with normal hearing, the mean multiattribute utility score for the children with hearing impairment was significantly lower for both the whole group and the moderate, severe, and profound severity subgroups. The differences in the distributions of the multiattribute utility scores between the children with hearing impairment as a group and the children with normal hearing and between each of the severity subgroups and the children with normal hearing all were statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS. 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 midchildhood.