Cosmetic Factors in hearing aid use
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Cosmetic factors and hearing aid use: a mixed methods view of hearing aid use and grief
IRAS ID
169200
Contact name
Jonathan Arthur
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cwm Taf University Healthboard
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
N/A, N/A
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 0 days
Research summary
Some patients choose not to wear hearing aids and there are many postulations as to why this may be. This project aims to investigate further issues around the way subjects use their hearing aids and is based around focus group interviews (a type of group meeting) to examine whether patients who have smaller hearing aids wear their hearing aids for longer than those with larger hearing aids. In addition, it has been shown that grief factors play a part in parental acceptance of hearing loss in a child that is deaf. Therefore, grief factors will looked at in more detail in a group of patients that wear hearing aids, to see if grief is a factor in use.
The study will examine outputs from focus group meetings in 32 participants, split into males and females and those who have been fitted with cosmetically more appealing hearing aids compared with those with "standard" larger hearing aids.(as seen below)
1) Male cosmetically more acceptable (MCMA) (8 subjects)
2) Female cosmetically more acceptable (FCMA) (8 subjects)
3) Male standard hearing aid (MSHA) (8 subjects)
4) Female standard hearing aid (FSHA) (8 subjects)In addition, a small amount of quantitative data (data related to numbers) will be collected related to a measure of objective hearing aid use (datalogging - information stored in the hearing aid related to use) and a questionnaire called the international outcome inventory for hearing aids (IOI-HA).
REC name
Wales REC 3
REC reference
15/WA/0104
Date of REC Opinion
13 Apr 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion