Association between Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Hearing Loss with Impaired Speech Recognition: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Introduction: Studies have identified a greater risk of sensory neural hearing loss in individuals with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) compared to healthy individuals, but it is unclear whether they are at increased risk of hearing loss with impaired speech recognition. The aim of this study was to assess whether COPD is associated with hearing loss that affects speech recognition.

Methods: This is a case-control study.

Evaluating the effect of antidepressants on the relationship between depression and asthma.

Background: It is unclear if depression is associated with impaired lung function in subjects with asthma, while few studies evaluated the effect of antidepressants on the relationship between depression and asthma. We designed this study to investigate if subjects with concomitant asthma and depression not taking antidepressants have worse asthma outcomes compared to asthmatic subjects without depression, and to evaluate whether antidepressants modify this association.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study.