Acquired hearing loss is one of the most common chronic conditions affecting the elderly, often causing a decline in the quality of life of those affected. Given that the world's population is aging, the issue of maintaining the highest possible quality of life for people with acquired hearing impairment is of growing importance. The core issue of this paper is the phenomenon of hearing handicap, being a trigger for seeking professional help and the best predictor of the quality of life of people with acquired hearing impairment. Hearing handicap is defined as a degree to which a hearing impairment affects an individual’s life by causing limitations in communication and daily functioning. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of age, gender and degree of hearing impairment on self-perceived hearing handicap. Eighty-four people with bilateral acquired hearing impairment, aged 60 to 94 years, participated in the study. In order to determine the degree of hearing impairment, all patients underwent tonal audiometry, while data on the severity of self-perceived hearing handicap were collected using the Croatian version of The Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE) questionnaire. The results of the study showed that self-perceived hearing handicap is positively correlated with age and degree of hearing impairment. According to the results of hierarchical regression analysis, the best predictor of the overall score on the HHIE questionnaire, but also of the scores on each of its subscales, is shown to be the degree of hearing impairment. Also, gender proved to be a significant predictor of scores on the emotional subscale, while age helps predict results on the social subscale of the questionnaire. Taken together, these findings help understand the variability in the perception of the impact of acquired hearing impairment on daily functioning, emphasize the necessity to account for individual needs when creating therapeutic goals and encourage exploring other factors which might be influencing hearing handicap self-perception.