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Elderly hearing-impaired persons’ coping behavior

International Journal of Behavioral Medicine volume 3, pages 303–320 (1996)Cite this article

Abstract

Little is known about the coping behaviors associated with hearing impairment. In this study, 24 elderly hearing-impaired participants participated in a structured video interview including communication faults (provocations) presented in association with sounds. The participants also completed measures of self-perceived hearing handicap, optimism, and depression. Several behaviors were coded independently by two observers using a rating scale that reached an average Cohen’s kappa of .75. A more conservative estimate resulted in a kappa of .50. Results showed that the provocations affected behavior differently. Especially problematic for the participants was a provocation in which the interviewer talked with his hand in front of his mouth. With one exception, no gender differences were found. Few significant relations between the assessed behaviors and self-assessed handicap, optimism, and depression were found. Hearing measurements (pure tone average and speech recognition) were not clearly related with the coping behaviors assessed, Behavioral observation techniques designed for the elderly hearing impaired should be further studied.

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Author information

Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Psychology, Uppsala University and Department of Audiology, Uppsala University Hospital, S-751 42, 1225, Uppsala, Sweden

    Gerhard Andersson

  2. Department of Clinical Psychology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Lennart Melin & Berit Scott

  3. Centre for Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Per Lindberg

Authors
  1. Gerhard Andersson
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  2. Lennart Melin
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  3. Per Lindberg
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  4. Berit Scott
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gerhard Andersson.

Additional information

This work was supported by the Swedish Council for Social Research. We thank Mikael Nyqvist for editing the video clips

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Andersson, G., Melin, L., Lindberg, P. et al. Elderly hearing-impaired persons’ coping behavior. Int. J. Behav. Med. 3, 303–320 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327558ijbm0304_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327558ijbm0304_2

Key words

  • hearing impairment
  • elderly
  • communication
  • coping
  • structured intervie