Gender and Hearing Aids: Patterns of Use and Determinants of Nonregular Use

Abstract

Overall, the present study provides evidence of gender-specific factors that influence hearing aid use patterns in men and women and of groups at higher risk for nonregular hearing aid use. Men with steeper audiogram slopes and the other subgroups of men and women with an increased risk for nonregular use should given particular attention when fitting their aids. As common risk factors for nonregular use, poor handling and low satisfaction should be addressed during the fitting process for all users. Further research is needed to clarify the differential influence of asymmetric hearing loss on hearing aid use in men and women. This information could improve hearing aid use and should be incorporated into daily clinical practice.

Effects of a Dual Sensory Loss Protocol on Hearing Aid Outcomes

“…Perhaps there was more room for improvement because HA use among these men was relatively low. This line of reasoning is in accordance with Staehelin et al (2011) who found that irregular use was significantly more likely in men compared with women. To our knowledge, other studies on interventions improving HA use do not report gender differences in HA outcomes.…”

Determinants of hearing-aid adoption and use among the elderly: A systematic review

“…A similar dichotomous presentation of daily hours of use was also found in one other study . Nine studies reported a wide range of daily hours of use from none to 18 hours per day (Saunders & Jutai, 2004;Cox et al, 2005;Nabelek et al, 2006;Bertoli et al, 2009;Saunders et al, 2009;Bertoli et al, 2010; Br ä nnstr ö m & Wennerstr ö m, 2010; Hartley et al, 2010;Staehelin et al, 2011). This is evidence of the lack of consistency in the reports on the daily hours of hearing-aid usage among the studies that were included in this review.…”

“…The age of the participants of these studies ranged from 50 to 97. With the exception of two studies that had subjects as young as 15, nonetheless, 77% of the subjects in these two studies were over the age of 65 (Bertoli et al, 2009;Staehelin et al, 2011). Sample sizes varied signifi cantly across studies, ranging from 60 (Yueh et al, 2001;Saunders et al, 2009) to 14 737 (Smeeth et al, 2002).…”

“…Five studies incorporated the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE) or its screening version (HHIE-S), together with a self-developed questionnaire (Fischer et al, 2011) or face-to-face interviews (Chang et al, 2009;Lopez-Torres Hidalgo et al, 2009;Hartley et al, 2010;Mizutari et al, 2013). Among the nine studies that used only a single instrument, six employed selfdeveloped questionnaires (Nabelek et al, 2006;Meister et al, 2008;Bertoli et al, 2009Bertoli et al, , 2010Staehelin et al, 2011;Ham et al, 2014), and three utilized face-to-face interviews (Smeeth et al, 2002;Lupsakko et al, 2005;Palmer et al, 2009). …”

Bimodal Hearing Aid Retention after Unilateral Cochlear Implantation

“…Even in the general field of HAs, there has been very little research to date that examines the differences between men and women in the use of HAs [McCormack and Fortnum, 2013]. In a study by Staehelin et al [2011], women also reported a higher prevalence of daily and regular use of HAs.…”