Evidence from this and other research indicates that standardized measurement of loudness perception is an achievable goal for clinical practice. The Contour Test appears to offer a viable approach to clinical measurement of loudness perception: It has good patient acceptance and combines fairly rapid administration with acceptable reliability. Details of test procedures and scoring sheets for manual administration can be downloaded from the Internet at www.ausp.memphis.edu/harl. However, it is important to keep in mind that the application of loudness perception data for narrowband stimuli (such as warble tones) to hearing aid prescription is complicated by the need to account for the effects of loudness summation across bandwidth. There is a need for additional research to establish an empirical link between clinically measured loudness perception and optimal amplification characteristics.
Although individual hearing aid seekers display personality characteristics within the range of normal, this study suggested that they are not simply a random sample of the general population. Possible explanations are offered for significant personality differences, and potential clinical relevance is noted for some effects. The data also point to a need to improve the public image of hearing health care in the PP system.
As reported in previous research, personality is associated with self-report outcome data. However, if practitioners utilize existing measures of hearing problems at the prefitting stage, separate personality data will not yield additional leverage in prediction of long-term fitting outcomes. Traditional fitting verification data as measured in this study, proved minimally useful in prediction of long-term outcomes of the fitting. A large proportion of variance in self-report fitting outcomes has yet to be accounted for. Finally, it appears that certain types of questionnaires might be more appropriate for research evaluating new amplification devices, whereas a different questionnaire approach might be optimal for evaluating intervention effectiveness in a clinical context.
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