PURPOSE: to investigate hearing complaints and characterize the social and emotional impacts of hearing handicap in elderly. METHODS: this cross-sectional study analyzed 35 participants of the projects: Enriquecimento Cultural e Processos de Envelhecimento and Nucleação, both of Pólo Interdisciplinar na Área do Envelhecimento of the Federal University of Juiz de Fora. Two instruments were used for data collection: an inventory the social-demographic features, general health and hearing perception and a tool reffered to as The Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly, HHIE (adapted by Wieselberg, 1997). We performed the descriptive analysis of the variables under study and, in order to check the association among the occurrence of hearing handicap with the others variables, bivariate analyzes were carried out, by using the X² test, considering p <0.05. RESULTS: the results showed the prevalence of hearing complaint for at least 11 (31.4%) of the people and the prevalence of hearing handicap in 10 (28.6%) regarding the emotional and social issues. The main hearing handicap implications were related to the social abilities, such as conversation comprehension; TV/radio comprehension; low tolerance to intense sounds and noisy environments. Only 7 (20%) did not have any perception of hearing problems. CONCLUSION: in spite of using a reduced sample, we noted hearing complaints in daily activities of elderly, which could not be investigated with routine health assessments, not even with audiometry. These results were significant, mainly because we used a specific group, that included "young elderly" (60-69-year old), facts that could decrease the number of complaints.
Self Assessment; Hearing; Aging
