Effect of Physician Consultation on Satisfaction With Hearing Aid Use

Abstract

Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic disabilities in older adults, yet reported rates of users' satisfaction with hearing aids are low. Some believe that physicians can provide patients who are pursuing a hearing aid fitting an impartial opinion that will improve hearing aid satisfaction.OBJECTIVE To determine whether a physician consultation increased or decreased patients' satisfaction with hearing aids compared with patients undergoing hearing aid fitting with a dispensing audiologist alone.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This multicenter, parallel-group, standard regimen-controlled, randomized clinical trial was conducted in offices of audiologists, family physicians, and a hospital-based neurotologist in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and recruited participants from July 2016 to December 2020 with a 3-month postintervention follow-up. The final data analysis was conducted on March 25, 2022. Adult first-time hearing aid users with averaged sensorineural hearing losses of more than 25 dB were prospectively allocated by random number generation to control and intervention groups. Participants were excluded from analysis if they did not attend follow-up or complete the study questionnaire.INTERVENTIONS Control participants were followed up solely by their dispensing audiologist. The intervention group attended a single structured visit with a physician in addition to their audiologist's determined follow-up. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURESPrimary outcome: hearing aid satisfaction 3 months postfitting as measured by the Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life (SADL) questionnaire. Secondary outcome: number of returned hearing aids. Prerecruitment null hypothesis: no intergroup difference in postfitting hearing aid satisfaction. Intergroup difference in mean SADL questionnaire scores analyzed by effect size and the Student t test and proportion of returned hearing aids by the Fischer exact test. RESULTS A total of 133 participants (mean [SD] age, 70.9 [8.5] years; 64 women [48.1%]) were recruited. Of these, 51 randomized to the control group (mean [SD] age, 71.7 [8.3] years; 28 women [54.9%]) and 42 to the physician intervention (mean [SD] age, 69.9 [7.6] years; 17 women [40.5%]) had results that were analyzed. There was no clinically meaningful intergroup difference in participants' SADL scores (control: mean [SD] score, 5.33 [0.72]; physician consultation: mean [SD] score, 5.35 [0.61]), the mean difference of 0.02 (95% CI, -0.25 to 0.29), or returned hearing aids (control, 1; physician consultation, 0). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEThe results of this randomized clinical trial suggest that a physician consultation that is focused on hearing change does not alter a patient's satisfaction with hearing aids 3 months postfitting.

A randomized controlled trial evaluating the effects of motivational interviewing in new hearing aid users (MI-HAT): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

“…An allowance of 50% participant dropout rate was adopted in this study as opposed to the 20% drop out identified by Aazh et al to compensate for the uncertainties or anticipated higher drop rate due to the COVID-19 pandemic [ 6 ]. This higher rate is reasonable because a previous hearing aid RCT trial conducted by our senior investigators who recruited participants from audiology clinics within the greater Vancouver area, in part over the pandemic period with 3 months’ follow-up, resulted in 39.1% of participant data in the intervention arm being unavailable because of participants’ failure to attend follow-up or complete study questionnaires fully [ 24 ]. This leads to an adjusted sample size of 180 participants, 90 per group.…”

A randomized controlled trial evaluating the effects of motivational interviewing in new hearing aid users (MI-HAT): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

“…investigators who recruited participants from audiology clinics within the greater Vancouver area, in part over the pandemic period with 3 months follow-up resulted 39.1% of participant data in the intervention arm being unavailable because of participants failure to attend follow-up or complete study questionnaires fully (24). This leads to an adjusted sample size of 180 participants, 90 per group.…”