Hearing Aid Uptake, Benefit, and Use: The Impact of Hearing, Cognition, and Personal Factors

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of hearing, cognition, and personal factors on hearing aid (HA) uptake, use, and benefit. Method Eighty-five older adults aged 60–80 years ( M = 70.23, SD = 5.17) participated in the study. Hearing was assessed using pure-tone audiometry and the Listening in Spatialised Noise–Sentences test. Cognition was measured using the Cogstate Brief Battery and the Cogstate Groton Maze Learning task. Personal demographics were recorded from participants' answers on a series of take-home questionnaires. HA benefit and use was subjectively reported at 3 and 6 months post HA fitting for those who chose to use HAs. Results Stepwise-regression and mixed-effects models indicated that stronger psychomotor function predicted greater reported use of HAs at 3 and 6 months post HA fitting. Greater family interaction scores also predicted greater HA use at 3 months after fitting. Participants who chose to be fitted with HAs had significantly poorer self-reported health and poorer audiometric thresholds. Poorer hearing was also significantly related with greater reported HA benefit. Conclusions A combination of cognitive, psychosocial factors and hearing impacted HA outcomes for the older Australians in this study. Self-reported HA use was significantly greater in participants with better psychomotor function. Furthermore, those with poorer self-reported health were more likely to choose to use HAs. These factors should be considered in audiological rehabilitation to best maximize patient HA outcomes.

Factors Influencing Hearing Help-Seeking and Hearing Aid Uptake in Adults: A Systematic Review of the Past Decade

“… Öberg et al (2012) and Tahden et al (2018) found that people were more likely to own a hearing aid if they had better self-reported health. In contrast, Nixon et al (2021) and Sawyer et al (2020) found that people were more likely to take up hearing aids if they had poorer self-reported health. Two studies reported on comorbidities and their relationship with hearing aid uptake.…”

Predicting hearing help-seeking: What features are important for a profiling module within a hearing mHealth application?

“…General health was also assessed given its predictive role for different steps of the HA uptake path (4,6). The belief that HA are associated with old age and infirmity is often a barrier to HA uptake and use (4), therefore attitude towards ageing was assessed as well.…”

“…A further important predictive feature for help-seeking is physical health. Literature suggests that individuals who report poor health are more prone to uptake a HA (6) in order to improve their well-being.…”

“…Acknowledgement and acceptance of hearing difficulties and their impact on everyday life have been discussed as the most important predictive features of HA uptake (5,6,10,11).…”

Core Values in the Traditional Provision of Hearing Health Care

“…Adults with better psychomotor function and poorer self-reported health status are more likely to adopt and use their hearing aids (Nixon et al, 2021). The subjective experience of hearing also influences help-seeking behavior; Humes & Dubno (2021) found that older adults who do not seek treatment for hearing loss tend to perceive less difficulty with applied to evaluate traditional audiology and achieve our goal of producing a tool to compare differences between service delivery models.…”