Psychological Distress among Hearing Impaired Students

Abstract

Every human being in this world faces difficulties and obstacles in their own way. In the case of hearing-impaired students, they generally come to face many challenges and stressors in their lives and academic periods, like challenges in the academic environment, socializing with other peer groups, communication barriers, financial constraints for their studies, lack of opportunities, fear of making mistakes, fear of failures, and being unable to get proper educational resources. Sometimes, these challenges may result in negative responses, like severe mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and social isolation. Psychological distress refers to the unpleasant sensations or negative emotions that can arise when an individual experiences a sense of being inundated. These emotional responses and sensations can hinder their daily functioning and influence their interactions with others. This quantitative study examined psychological distress among hearing-impaired students. For the study, 120 hearing-impaired students (60 males and 60 females) were selected from the Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, and Kottayam districts of Kerala. The age range of the sample was from 13 to 20 years. The participants completed the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) by Kessler (2003). Major findings concluded that although psychological distress varied among participants individually, as a whole, they had a mild level of psychological distress and found a significant difference in psychological distress among hearing-impaired students based on their gender and educational category.