DISPOSITIONAL OPTIMISM, DYSPHORIA, HEALTH, AND COPING WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT IN ELDERLY ADULTS

Sixty-eight elderly hearing impaired subjects were interviewed and completed self-report measures on hearing disability, dispositional optimism, dysphoria, and general health. The measures used were the Hearing Coping Assessment (HCA), the Hearing Questions (HQ), the Life Orientation Test (LOT), The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and a subscale from the Goteborg Quality of Life (GQL). Psychometric analyses of HCA, HQ, LOT, BDI, and GQL revealed high reliability in terms of Cronbach's Alpha and split-half r's. Significant intercorrelations were found between several measures, but not with pure-tone audiometry(0.5, 1, 2, and 3 kHz). Cluster analysis was used to identify subgroups in the sample. As a result three clusters were identified interpreted as 'high copers', 'copers with moderate psychological and somatic complaints', and 'low copers'. Results from the cluster analyses were confirmed by using two different clustering methods and by between-cluster comparisons on the HQ, which had not been used to obtain the clusters.