Objectives: The purpose of this study was to compare between the two newly developed Arabic speech in noise tests (QuickSIN and HINT) to study the clinical utility of both tests in adults with sensorineural hearing loss.
Patients and Methods: Seventy five subjects, aged 18-50 years, were divided into two groups: Control group consisted of 25 normal hearing subjects and study group consisted of 50 subjects, who were further divided into three subgroups. Subgroup (IIa): 20 subjects with moderate and moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss. Subgroup (IIb): 20 subjects with moderate and moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss who were HAs users. Subgroup (IIc): 10 subjects with unilateral Cochlear implantation (CI). Materials: Arabic QuickSIN, Arabic HINT and Arabic Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) questionnaire.
Results: The QuickSIN test had some advantages over HINT in terms of clinical use. The QuickSIN test showed better separation in recognition performances between normal hearing and hearing loss than HINT. The sensitivity for QuickSIN was higher than HINT in all subgroups. Correlation for the QuickSIN test with APHAP background noise (BN) subscale was higher than the correlation for the HINT in HL and HA subgroups. However, both tests were not correlated with APHAB (BN) subscale in CI group.
Conclusion: Both tests explain the listener's experience of hearing in background noise. However, QuickSIN test is a more sensitive measure of speech perception in noise than HINT does in both unaided and aided conditions. CI subjects had the lowest performance for both tests.