TY - JOUR

T1 - Hearing examinations in Southern Denmark (HESD) database

T2 - a valuable tool for hearing-related epidemiological research

AU - Cantuaria, Manuella Lech

AU - Pedersen, Ellen Raben

AU - Waldorff, Frans Boch

AU - Sørensen, Mette

AU - Schmidt, Jesper Hvass

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Objective: To introduce and document the recently established HESD (Hearing Examinations in Southern Denmark) database, including the necessary data preprocessing steps, and to describe the hearing loss (HL) characteristics of the study sample. Design: Clinical auditory information has been collected for approximately 20 years in the state-funded clinics of the Region of Southern Denmark. We reviewed these data and conducted extensive preprocessing through data selection, integration, cleaning, transformation, and classification. HL profiling was then assessed in terms of severity, asymmetry, configuration, site of lesion, and audiogram shape. Study sample: The final number of complete audiograms available in the HESD database was 271,556, corresponding to detailed hearing information for 143,793 adults. Results: The distribution of HL characteristics differed significantly (p < 0.001) between men and women for all categories analysed. Clear differences were observed for asymmetry and audiogram configuration. However, both men and women had higher prevalence of unilateral, moderate, and sensorineural HL. Conclusions: This work highlights the potential of the HESD database as a source of audiology-related epidemiological data. It can be used to evaluate the distribution of HL characteristics and also to investigate risk factors for HL and the associations between HL and other health outcomes.

AB - Objective: To introduce and document the recently established HESD (Hearing Examinations in Southern Denmark) database, including the necessary data preprocessing steps, and to describe the hearing loss (HL) characteristics of the study sample. Design: Clinical auditory information has been collected for approximately 20 years in the state-funded clinics of the Region of Southern Denmark. We reviewed these data and conducted extensive preprocessing through data selection, integration, cleaning, transformation, and classification. HL profiling was then assessed in terms of severity, asymmetry, configuration, site of lesion, and audiogram shape. Study sample: The final number of complete audiograms available in the HESD database was 271,556, corresponding to detailed hearing information for 143,793 adults. Results: The distribution of HL characteristics differed significantly (p < 0.001) between men and women for all categories analysed. Clear differences were observed for asymmetry and audiogram configuration. However, both men and women had higher prevalence of unilateral, moderate, and sensorineural HL. Conclusions: This work highlights the potential of the HESD database as a source of audiology-related epidemiological data. It can be used to evaluate the distribution of HL characteristics and also to investigate risk factors for HL and the associations between HL and other health outcomes.

KW - audiogram

KW - characterisation

KW - database

KW - epidemiology

KW - Hearing loss

KW - prevalence

U2 - 10.1080/14992027.2020.1831702

DO - 10.1080/14992027.2020.1831702

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 33074773

AN - SCOPUS:85092761950

VL - 60

SP - 300

EP - 311

JO - International Journal of Audiology

JF - International Journal of Audiology

SN - 1499-2027

IS - 4

ER -