Sensitivity and specificity of the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ5) for screening hearing in adults.
Rejane Abdala Assef, Katia Almeida, Elisiane Crestani de Miranda-Gonsalez
PMID 35239794WHAT IT FOUND
The Brazilian Portuguese SSQ5 scores differed between adults with and without hearing loss on audiometry.
Low scores suggested impairment, high scores suggested normal hearing, and the short questionnaire was quick to administer.
Key findings
01The SSQ5 mean total score was 8.05 in adults with normal audiometry and 5.56 in adults with impaired audiometry.
02The optimal SSQ5 cut-off for screening hearing loss was 7.3.
03At the 7.3 cut-off, sensitivity was 81.8% and specificity was 78.3%.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Participants were adults already referred for audiometric testing, so the results may not apply to all adults in the community. The normal-hearing and hearing-impaired groups differed in age and education, and education was weakly associated with SSQ5 score in the normal-hearing group. The cut-off point was chosen from the same 135 participants whose scores were then used to report sensitivity and specificity, not from a separate validation sample. The paper reports screening accuracy only; it does not report patient outcomes after screening, so it does not show that using the SSQ5 changes hearing care.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the SSQ5 as a diagnostic hearing test. At the 7.3 cut-off, it flagged 81.8% of people with hearing loss and cleared 78.3% of people with normal hearing, so some people with hearing loss may score above the cut-off and some people with normal hearing may score below it.