Part I: Factors influencing professional functioning 65 including the possible confounders explained only 3 percent of the variance. The second model, after inclusion of hearing status, explained 10 percent of the variance. The third model, after inclusion of hearing status and the interaction between hearing status and the subjective noise level, explained 12 percent of the variance. Discussion Many researchers have assessed the reliability and validity of speech-in-noise screening tests for identifying hearing loss, but it was unclear if poorer screening outcomes are also associated with higher LE and higher NFR. We found that hearing status was significantly associated with LE, but not with NFR in a population of employees of a manufacturing company. The associations did not depend on the perceived noise level at the workplace. The finding that poorer hearing is associated with higher LE during the performance of auditory job tasks is in line with earlier studies in clinical populations (Kramer et al., 2006; Van der Hoek-Snieders et al., 2020). It suggests that the performance of auditory job tasks can be more demanding for employees with poorer hearing. It should however be noted that only weak to moderate associations were found in these studies: r = .39 in this study and r = .20, and r = .69 in the earlier studies of Van der Hoek-Snieders et al. (2020) and Kramer et al. (2006) respectively. This implies that the effort it takes to perform auditory job tasks is only partly determined by hearing status. For example, cognitive load and speaker characteristics play a role according to the classification of Mattys et al. (2012), such as pronunciation, disfluencies, and speech disorders. This might suggest that LE at work also depends on the complexity of the job task and on speaker characteristics of colleagues. A non-significant association was found between hearing status and NFR. Earlier, mixed results were presented regarding the association between the ability to understand speech in noise and NFR (Nachtegaal et al., 2009; Van der HoekSnieders et al., 2020; Van Leeuwen et al., 2021). A significant association was found in the cross-sectional study of Nachtegaal et al. (2009) and in the longitudinal study of Van Leeuwen et al. (2021). These studies included adults with normal hearing and adults with various degree of hearing loss. No significant association was found in the cross-sectional analyses of Van der Hoek-Snieders et al. (2020, 2022). They included employees that visited an audiological center, because of hearing
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