Objective: This study aimed to investigate the effect of wearing a face mask on word recognition in hearing-impaired listeners.
Design: Word recognition scores were obtained in quiet and in different signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs 0, +5, and +10 dB) using two listening conditions (with N95 mask and with no-mask).
Study sample: Participants were forty-six listeners with normal hearing sensitivity and thirty-nine listeners with mild to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss.
Results: Results showed that wearing a face mask affected word recognition and that this effect was greater for listeners with hearing impairment than that observed for listeners with normal hearing sensitivity. The extent of this effect was also dependent on the SNR conditions such that the effect of wearing a face mask was worse in adverse listening conditions.
Conclusions: Overall, this study demonstrated that face mask can disrupt speech intelligibility possibly by degrading some acoustical features which may pose substantial difficulties for those with hearing impairment.
Keywords: COVID-19; Face mask; Hearing loss; Speech intelligibility; Word recognition.