TITLE:
Childhood Hearing Impairment, Gender, and Trait Neuroticism as Independent Predictors of the Occurrence of Hearing Problems in Adulthood
AUTHORS:
Helen Cheng, Adrian Furnham
KEYWORDS:
Hearing Problems in Childhood and Adulthood, Childhood Intelligence, Personality Traits, Longitudinal
JOURNAL NAME:
Health,
Vol.11 No.1,
January
30,
2019
ABSTRACT: This study explored psychological, biomedical, and social factors in childhood and adulthood associated with the occurrence of self-reported hearing problems in adulthood. In total, 4828 participants with complete data on parental social class at birth, childhood hearing impairment measured at age 7 years and cognitive ability accessed at age 11 years, educational qualifications obtained at age 33 years, the Big-Five-Factor personality traits measured at age 50 years, current occupational levels and self-reported hearing problems at age 54 years were included in the study. Logistic regression analysis showed that among all the factors examined childhood hearing impairment and trait neuroticism as well as gender were the significant and independent predictors of hearing problems in adulthood.