Hearing, personality, and mental health
Creators: name: Braun, Bianca
name: McClannahan, Katrina S.
name: Peelle, Jonathan E.
Publisher: name: OSF Registries
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Speech and Hearing Science
subject: Medicine and Health Sciences
subject: Communication Sciences and Disorders
subject: Mental and Social Health

description: Have data already been collected? 

Data for this study have already been collected but not analyzed with respect to the variables noted here. In particular, the personality data have never been analyzed. Previously, hearing handicap (SSQ, HHIE composite), social anxiety (SIAS6/SPS6), and negative affect (PROMIS Anxiety, Depression and Anger composite) were examined to determine the relationship between hearing loss and social anxiety. The full sample comprised 628 adults aged 18 years and older. However, for this analysis, only individuals with reported hearing loss are considered (N= 182). 
 
What's the main question being asked, or hypothesis being tested in this study? 

Overall, we are interested in the role personality may play in the association between self-reported hearing handicap and mental health in individuals with hearing loss. The main question we aim to answer is whether certain personality traits (Neuroticism and Conscientiousness) affect the strength or direction of the relationship between self-perceived hearing handicap and mental health, especially anxiety and depression symptoms. Prior literature suggests a strong positive correlation between hearing handicap and depression whilst anxiety outcomes have been investigated less in this realm. We hence predict the following trends: 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with anxiety symptoms in individuals with hearing loss. 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with depressive symptoms in individuals with hearing loss. 
Adding the moderating role of neuroticism and conscientiousness to the analyses, we predict that neuroticism will strengthen the relationship between hearing handicap and negative mental health outcomes while conscientiousness will play a protective role and weaken the relationship between hearing handicap and negative mental health outcomes. Specifically, we predict the following differing effects: 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with anxiety symptoms in individuals with hearing loss, but this relationship will be amplified through the addition of neuroticism to the model. 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with anxiety symptoms in individuals with hearing loss, but this relationship will be attenuated through the addition of conscientiousness to the model. 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with depressive symptoms in individuals with hearing loss, but this relationship will be amplified through the addition of neuroticism to the model. 
Hearing handicap will be positively correlated with depressive symptoms in individuals with hearing loss, but this relationship will be attenuated through the addition of conscientiousness to the model. 
 

Describe the key dependent variable(s) specifying how they will be measured. 

The key dependent variables are anxiety and depression symptoms as measured via the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) (Cella et al., 2007). Only the Mental Health profile domain of PROMIS was administered to inquire about anxiety and depressive symptoms. The PROMIS Anxiety bank consists of 29 items inquiring about symptoms during the past 7 days on a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (“Never”) to 5 (“Always”). The item bank focuses on fear (e.g., fearfulness, feelings of panic), anxious misery (e.g., worry, dread), hyperarousal (e.g., tension, nervousness, restlessness), and some somatic symptoms related to arousal (e.g., cardiovascular symptoms, dizziness) (Schalet et al., 2014). The PROMIS Depression bank consists of 28 items inquiring about symptoms during the past 7 days on a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (“Never”) to 5 (“Always”). The item bank focuses on cognitive and emotional manifestations of depression, but not somatic symptoms such as changes in diet, energy, or sleep (Kaat et al., 2017). 
 
Specify exactly which statistical analyses you will conduct to examine the main question/hypothesis. 

A moderated multiple linear regression analysis in R will be utilized to test each of these hypotheses. In addition, significant demographic correlates of the according outcome measure will be included as covariates for the moderation analyses. We will adequately adjust for Type 1 Error and use p-values for inference. The significance level for the p-value is set to 0.05. 
Statistical analysis will be carried out using R (R Core Team, 2021), including the lmtest (Zeileis &amp; Hothorn, 2002), car (Fox &amp; Weisberg, 2019), interactions (v 1.1.0; Long, 2019), and ggplot2 (Wickham, 2016) packages. 
 
Linear regression models will take after the following example: 
lm(MentalHealthOutcome ~ HearingHandicap * Personality, data = Data$HearingLossGroup) 
Covariates included in all models will be: age, sex, and hearing aid status (yes/no) 
 
Any secondary analyses? 

Exploratory analyses may be conducted on the moderating role of the other Big 5 personality traits (Openness, Agreeableness, and Extraversion) on the association between self-perceived hearing handicap and anxiety and depression outcomes. 
On the other hand, curiosity also surrounds the potential differential role of personality on the association between self-perceive hearing handicap and other mental health outcomes such as paranoia, or specifically social anxiety. 
A total of 16 additional exploratory analyses will be run.