Does cochlear implantation affect personality of hearing-impaired patients? A five-year follow-up study.

Background: Previous studies found that in patients with profound hearing loss the NEO- personality factor Openness-to-experience is lowered.

Objective: Assuming that lowered Openness-to-experience may be due to limited access to sounds, we hypothesized that levels of Openness-to-experience would increase in these patients after cochlear implantation.

Material and methods: Twenty adults (mean age: 61 years; active CI users) with bilateral profound hearing loss were assessed with the NEO-Five-Factor-Inventory before cochlear implantation (pre) and five years later (post).

Results: No significant pre-post changes in personality were seen. Both before and five years after cochlear implantation, the sample had normal age- and gender-specific mean values on the factors Extraversion, Neuroticism, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (T ≈ 50), but significantly lowered mean values on Openness-to-experience (T ≈ 42, p < 0.001).

Conclusions and significance: Cochlear implantation apparently has no (or at best very little) effect on Openness-to-experience in profoundly hearing impaired patients. While this study demonstrates once again, that high-grade hearing loss may be associated with less openness to new experiences, the reason for this association remains unclear.