On prediction of hearing disability.

The present investigation was performed in order to evaluate the pure-tone frequency and/or averages of frequencies best correlated with speech intelligibility measured by the discrimination score (DS) in quiet and in background noise, and, in addition, indicate a valid low fence of the DS when correlated to a self-assessment procedure. The material comprises 158 male subjects with a median age of 60 years, range 52-72 years, drawn from an ongoing longitudinal epidemiological investigation. By self-assessment 36% indicated hearing disability in noisy backgrounds, while 64% had no hearing problems. The pure-tone frequency that correlated best with the speech intelligibility in quiet was the 2-kHz pure-tone frequency. In background noise the best correlation was found with the 3-kHz pure-tone frequency. In the group of subjects with complaints of hearing problems, the median discrimination score in background noise was 84% (IQR 72-92), while in the group of subjects with no complaints the median discrimination score in noise was 92% (IQR 88-96). Based on the results it is concluded that DS in background noise is a valuable measure in the assessment of hearing disability, but no low fence value can be indicated on the basis of the present results.