Subjective magnitude of auditory handicap in Thailand

Abstract

Subjective magnitude estimations of the degree of auditory handicap were made by 130 consecutive adult hearing-impaired outpatients in the Otolaryngology Department of a General Hospital in Thailand. The subjective magnitude of auditory handicap was significantly correlated with the geometric mean of the sound pressures corresponding to the hearing threshold for the two ears at 2,000 Hz. A power function was fitted to the data relating subjective magnitude to the hearing loss when the latter was expressed in terms of this geometric mean sound pressure. For both men and women, the exponent was appreciably less than that which had been found to hold for subjects both in Cairo and in London. The difference is discussed.