Self-reported experiences of incidents and injury events in traffic among hearing impaired people as pedestrians and cyclists : a follow-up study of mobility and use of hearing equipment.

Patients with hearing impairments have no self-reported experiences of feeling insecure in the traffic environment. A follow-up study was conducted with 21 patients after the rehabilitation process at the Hearing Centre and the Accident Analysis Group, University Hospital in Umea, Sweden and 90 per cent of the respondents reported feeling safe in traffic. However, the hearing impaired are more vulnerable than others because they find it difficult to identify in which direction sounds made by cyclists and motorists are actually coming from. In the future, professionals would gain more knowledge about mobility and injury prevention if they tried to detect the coping strategies used by patients with hearing impairments. (Author/Publisher)