Prevalence of hearing impairment in a population in Sweden.

An epidemiological study was carried out, based on 590 randomly selected subjects, aged from 20 to 80 years, in the province of Ostergötland in Sweden. The results obtained were similar to published results from other countries, with an overall prevalence of subjects with average hearing threshold levels over the frequencies 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 kHz (M4) equal to or exceeding 25 dB HL for the better ear (BE) of 16.9% (95% CI: 13.819.9%). For M4 BE > or = 35 dB HL, the prevalence was 7.7% (95% CI: 5.5-9.8%), for M4 BE > or = 45 dB HL, the prevalence was 3.3% (95% CI: 1.9-4.8%), and for M4 BE > or = 65 dB HL, the prevalence was 0.2% (95% Cl: 0.0-0.6%). The overall prevalence of reported tinnitus was 13.2% (95% CI: 10.5-16.0%). In the population under study, 7.7% of the subjects were estimated to benefit from a hearing aid, while the prevalence of hearing aid users was 2.4%.