Patterns and Factors Associated with Hearing Loss among Adult Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Aims: To establish the patterns of hl and associated factors among type 2 DM (T2DM) patients so that intervention is affected

Study Design: A cross-sectional study.

Place and duration of study: Mbarara regional referral hospital’s diabetic and ENT clinic from august 2021 to April 2022.

Methodology: using consecutive sampling, we undertook a cross-sectional study at Mbarara regional referral hospital among 260 adult patients with type 2 diabetic mellitus (T2DM). A semi-structured questionnaire was utilized to gather data on demographics and medical factors. Otoscopy and pure tone audiometry were subsequently done. Data were analyzed using stata v15.0 and results were reported using frequencies and means for continuous data and regression analysis for categorical data. Hearing loss was reported as per who recommendation.

Results: The majority of the participants were female (69.6%) with a mean age of 54.7 years (sd: 12.5). 53.1% of participants had T2DM <5 years, 55.8% had concurrent hypertension and 74% were in poor glycemic control at study time. Almost all had normal otoscopic findings. The overall proportion of hearing loss (HL) was 29.2% (76 of 260). Bilateral SNHL was the most common type of HL at 86.1% (31 of 76) with a combined mild to moderate degree of loss in more than 87% of the cases.

Conclusion: The overall proportion of HL among T2DM patients at MRRH is low and majorly are of mild to moderate SNHL type.