Self-Rated Mental Health, School Adjustment, and Substance Use in Hard-of-Hearing Adolescents

This survey, “Life and Health—Young People 2005,” included all 15/16-year-old adolescents in mainstream schools in the county of Örebro, Sweden. Just students with a slight/mild or moderate hearing loss were included. There were 56 (1.9%) “hard-of-hearing (HH) students with multiple disabilities,” 93 (3.1%) students who were “just HH,” 282 (9.7%) students with some “other disability than HH,” and 2,488 (85.2%) students with “no disability.” “HH with multiple disabilities” reported considerably higher scores for mental symptoms, substance use, and school problems than the “no disability” group. Those with “just HH” and those with “other disability than HH” had more mental symptoms and school problems than the “no disability” group but no significant differences in substance use. In conclusion, the combination of a hearing loss and some other disability strongly increases the risk for mental symptoms, school problems, and substance use. This group, thus, is an important target for preventive measures.