Importance of personality and coping expectancy on patient-reported hearing disability, quality of life and distress level: a study of patients referred to an audiology service

Purpose

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), hearing loss (HL) affects up to 15% of the world’s adult population. Coping and personality are hypothesized to underlie quality of life (QoL) and distress scores. We aimed to study the importance of personality and coping in persons with HL for self-reported hearing disability, QoL, and distress.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was carried out, including one hundred and fifty-eight adults seeking hearing aids. Pure-tone average hearing thresholds (PTA) were determined for each ear. A revised version of the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) served as a measure of self-reported hearing disability. Further, the generic part of the European Organization for Research and Treatment (EORTC) QoL questionnaire and the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) (distress measure) were answered. Levels of neuroticism and the Theoretically Originated Measure of the Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress (TOMCATS) coping expectancy were determined.

Results

Hearing disability was determined by PTA (better ear) and level of neuroticism. Distress and QoL were determined by neuroticism and coping.

Conclusion

More neuroticism was associated with worse outcome for the variables hearing disability, distress, and QoL. Helplessness and hopelessness were associated with worse hearing disability, increased distress, and lowered QoL. Patient reported hearing disability was also associated with PTA (better ear). There is a need to investigate further the associations between hearing disability and QoL to psychosocial parameters.

Influência da Carreira e do Capital Psicológico em Aspectos de Vida e Trabalho

Resumo Este estudo foi desenvolvido com objetivo de compreender as inter-relações entre dimensões psicológicas de carreira (pensamentos negativos e adaptabilidade de carreira), capital psicológico e domínios de vida trabalho (sucesso de carreira e empregabilidade percebida) e não trabalho (satisfação com a vida). Duas amostras foram utilizadas, a primeira constituída de 189 universitários com média de idade de 21,44 anos (DP = 3,33), sendo 65,1% do sexo feminino, e a segunda por 312 empregados de nível superior com média de idade de 27,88 anos (DP = 5,19), sendo 51% do sexo feminino. Os resultados, a partir de modelos de equações estruturais, apontaram que para universitários os contextos de vida trabalho e não trabalho são influenciados pela adaptabilidade e pensamentos negativos de carreira. Já em trabalhadores, os resultados apontam a influência pelos pensamentos negativos de carreira e o capital psicológico. Discutem-se aplicações para pesquisa e contexto de orientação profissional e desenvolvimento de carreira.

The Effectiveness of Strategies for Coping With Career Indecision

The present research investigated which strategies Israeli young adults ( N = 254) use to cope with their career indecision and the perceived effectiveness of these strategies. Their perceptions of the effectiveness of coping strategies were compared to the respective judgments of career counselors ( N = 36). The similarity between the young adults’ and the career counselors’ perceptions ( r = .98) suggests that young adults have a fairly accurate judgment of the effectiveness of various coping strategies. However, career counselors perceived emotional help-seeking as a more effective strategy and helplessness and submission as less effective strategies than did young adults (| d| > 0.89). The results also show that Productive coping strategies, although perceived as effective by the young adults, were actually used less by them, whereas Nonproductive coping strategies, although perceived as ineffective, were used more. The counseling implications of the finding that the Nonproductive coping strategies but not the productive ones predict career decision-making difficulties are discussed.