Reasons for non-use of hearing aids among adults with hearing loss from different age groups

Adult hearing loss is highly prevalent and negatively impacts quality of life. Though regular hearing aid use is known to have several benefits in these adults, their uptake and use of hearing aids is significantly low. The present study aims to find out and compare the reasons for hearing aid non-use among young, middle-aged and older adult non-users and past users with hearing loss. 105 adults with post-lingual moderate to profound hearing loss, distributed across three age groups, comprising 60 non-users and 45 past users responded to a researcher-developed tool listing out audiological and non-audiological reasons for hearing aid non-use. Among non-users, reasons differed significantly for the young and middle-aged and the young and older adults. Among past users, significant difference was found between the middle-aged and older and the young and older adults. The reasons listed by non-users and past users were also found to differ significantly. The reasons for hearing aid non-use that are considered important by adults from different age groups are influenced by their life stages and expectations from hearing aids.