Background: The International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) is a seven-item hearingspecific questionnaire. It was developed with the purpose of evaluating the efficacy of hearing aid rehabilitation. Few psychometric properties have been presented for a Swedish translation of the IOI-HA. Furthermore, previous studies have examined the IOI-HA in mainly sensorineural hearing losses, and we do not know how the type of hearing loss affects the outcome.Purpose: To evaluate the hearing aid fitting outcome measured in a clinical setting using a Swedish translation of the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA), to determine the psychometric properties of the translation, and to examine how a number of demographic variables such as type of hearing loss affect the outcome.Research Design: A descriptive and correlational study in a retrospective sample.Study Sample: Two hundred and twenty-four (107 females and 117 males; ages 27-94 yr with an average of 66.1 yr) first-time hearing aid users.Intervention: Mostly digital hearing aids (97.8%) were fitted monaurally (60%) or binaurally (40%) between 2007 and 2009. Data Collection and Analysis:The subjects were mailed the IOI-HA questionnaire six months after their final appointment, and the completed questionnaire was returned by mail to the clinic. The psychometric properties were evaluated and compared to previous studies using the IOI-HA. The associations between the outcome scores and a number of demographic variables (age, gender, degree of hearing loss, type of hearing loss, number of hearing aids, and type of hearing aids) were examined. Based on the pure tone audiograms, the subjects were divided into three groups; those with conductive hearing losses, sensorineural hearing losses, and mixed hearing losses. For these groups, the differences in outcome measured as IOI-HA were examined. Results:The psychometric properties of the present translation of the IOI-HA showed resemblance in many aspects to previous reports. Furthermore, the type of hearing loss seems to affect the IOI-HA outcome. Hearing loss increases with increasing age, and hearing aid use increases with increasing degree of hearing loss. Subjects with sensorineural hearing losses show significantly poorer scores on items concerning introspective aspects of the outcome in comparison to subjects with mixed hearing losses and subjects with conductive hearing losses. Monaurally fitted subjects tend to report lower scores on average, but monaural or binaural hearing aid fitting do not significantly affect the subjective outcome. Conclusions:The psychometric properties of the present Swedish translation of the IOI-HA show resemblance in many aspects to previous reports, but the differences observed could be due to differences in the study populations. Overall, the demographic variables examined could not be used as pre-512 dictors for the hearing aid fitting outcome, and more reliable predictors need to be identified.

Danish and non-semantic ANL versions yield results similar to the American English version. The magnitude of the CR indicates that ANL with Danish and non-semantic speech materials is not suitable for prediction of individual patterns of future hearing-aid use or evaluation of individual benefit from hearing-aid features. The ANL with Danish and non-semantic speech materials is not related to IOI-HA outcome.

Keywordshearing impairment, hearing aids, internet health information, health information quality, health information readability A. Laplante-Lévesque et al. 2 AbstractObjective: This study evaluated the quality and readability of English-language internet information for adults with hearing impairment and their significant others.Design: Two keyword pairs (hearing loss and hearing aids) were entered into five country-specific versions of the most commonly used internet search engine in May 2011.Sample: For each of the 10 searches, the first 10 relevant websites were included. After removing duplicates, a total of 66 websites were assessed. Their origin (commercial, non-profit organization, or government), date of last update, quality (Health On the Net -HON-certification and DISCERN scores), and readability (Flesch Reading Ease Score, Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level Formula, and Simple Measure Of Gobbledygook) were assessed.Results: Most websites were of commercial origin and had been updated within the last 18 months. Their quality and readability was highly variable. Only 14% of the websites had HON certification. Websites that were of non-profit organization origin had significantly higher DISCERN scores. Readability measures show that on average, only people with at least 11-12 years of education could read and understand the internet information presented.Conclusions: Based on these results, this article provides a list of recommendations for website developers and clinicians wishing to incorporate internet information into their practice. internet information 3

The children's susceptibility to the effect of the dysphonic voice and the background listening conditions are related to the individual's executive functions. The findings have several implications for design of interventions in language learning environments such as classrooms.

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