Cochlear Implants in Veterans: 10-Year Experience at a Single Referral Center.

PURPOSE: Severe hearing loss is particularly prevalent among Veterans. In response, the Veterans Affairs (VA) provides hearing aids and cochlear implants as part of their comprehensive hearing loss treatment. The VA's national health care system and integrated electronic health records offer a unique opportunity to examine patterns and outcomes in the management of severe hearing loss. METHOD: We retrospectively reviewed an urban VA center's database for all Veterans who underwent cochlear implantation between 2010 and 2019. We collected preoperative demographic and audiological data including cochlear implant outcomes. RESULTS: During the study period, 61 Veterans received a cochlear implant, totaling 70 ears implanted. Median age at implantation was 70.2 years. Over 90% of Veterans reported preoperative hearing aid use, and median preoperative four-frequency pure-tone average and aided word recognition score in the ear to be implanted were 100 dB HL and 7%, respectively. The median onset of severe hearing loss bilaterally was over 4 years prior to cochlear implant evaluation based on available audiometric data. Postoperative word recognition score was negatively correlated with self-reported duration of hearing loss. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides unique insights into how Veterans with severe hearing loss are managed at one VA center. Compared to data published on cochlear implant recipients in the civilian population, Veterans in this cohort were older and had higher rates of preoperative hearing aid use. Available VA data suggest most Veterans were appropriate candidates for cochlear implant referral years prior to undergoing an evaluation. Reasons for treatment delays in this population remain to be studied.

Personality and responses to Covid-19 health and safety prevention.

In this study, we examine the respective effects of prosocial personality and grandiose narcissism on individual social responsibility, and attitudinal and behavioral responses to Covid-19 health and safety preventive measures. We further analyze the extent to which individuals feel targeted by bullies for wearing a mask in order to shed light on the psychological consequences of the current pandemic. We employed a cross-sectional technique using a snowball sampling method to recruit participants from the United States and Canada. We obtained a total of 968 completed surveys. Results of SEM reveal that prosocial personality enhances individual social responsibility and positive responses to health and safety preventive measures, whereas grandiose narcissism augments negative responses. Results highlight that socially responsible individuals report being bullied for wearing a mask. Findings are discussed in light of the characteristics of the respondents, and cultural aspects.