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'Aim': To evaluate the Hearing Disability and Handicap Scale (HDHS) in an unselected population of adults with hearing impairment. 'Subjects and methods': A total of 342 consecutive adults who consulted the outpatient unit of audiology in the ENT department of a Norwegian university hospital answered HDHS, which intends to assess the negative consequences of hearing loss. The psychometric evaluation included internal structure analyses and made use of principal factors followed by varimax rotation, construct validity by corrected item–total correlation, and internal consistency reliability by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. 'Results': HDHS showed good psychometric properties with three factors, i.e. speech perception (five items), non-speech sound (five items) and participation restriction (10 items). All had good internal consistency reliability. The inventory distinguished between activity limitations and other problems related to social life participation. 'Conclusion:' HDHS was found to be adequate for research and clinical purposes in an unselected adult population with a quite different cultural background and language than the original one.