Behavioural and self-report hearing aid outcome measures, Version 1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Comparing results from self-report and behavioural speech perception tests as means to measure outcomes for hearing aid users.
IRAS ID
258108
Contact name
Andrew Rutter
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 27 days
Research summary
Outcome measures are used to determine the success of hearing aid fittings. It is important that the outcome measures used reflect the communication difficulties or participation restrictions as reported by the patient and that they are reliable to measure. Two commonly used outcome measures are behavioural speech tests and self-report questionnaires. Research has shown when these two measures are used to assess the same outcome domain, the correlations between them are often low.
One reason may be that self-reported questionnaires assess a range of listening situations, of which speech perception in noise difficulties tend to be reported as most problematic. Whereas speech tests, especially those used in the clinic, assess only one particular listening situation at a time and often in quiet. Therefore, this project will investigate whether a higher correlation between speech tests and self-report measures might be achieved if listening situations are more closely matched between speech tests and self-report measures. The project will also investigate another potential cause for the current lack of correlation between speech tests and self-report measures, namely each measure’s test-retest reliability.
This project will measure hearing aid outcomes for patients attending adult audiological services for their hearing aid follow up appointment. A self-report, hearing-specific questionnaire and two different speech tests (one in quiet and one in noise) will be used and the results compared. All outcome measures will be repeated after at least one week.
REC name
South Central - Hampshire A Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/SC/0406
Date of REC Opinion
16 Aug 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion