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Article History

Received: 19 November 2025

Accepted: 1 May 2026

First Online: 28 May 2026

Declarations

:

: All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, India (approval number PGI/IEC/2021/001750). Informed consent was obtained electronically from all individual participants included in the study during the online screening phase via a mandatory tick-box agreement that was required before access to the DIN-H test was granted. Participants explicitly agreed to: (1) undergo hearing screening; (2) share their data with audiologists for follow-up and evaluation; and (3) allow anonymised use of their data for research purposes. No personal identifiers were stored on the public-facing website. All participant data were stored on a password-protected institutional server at PGIMER, with access restricted to the study team. Data handling was conducted in compliance with PGIMER’s data protection policies.

: Not Applicable.

: The authors declare no competing interests.