LEQ Development & Pretesting
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The development and preliminary testing of a new patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) of listening effort for use with adult cochlear implant candidates\n
IRAS ID
235015
Contact name
Sarah E. Hughes
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University (ABMU) Health Board
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
This study will construct a new questionnaire to measure how listening effort (how hard a person must work at listening) affects the everyday lives of people with hearing loss who receive cochlear implants (CI). A cochlear implant is a hearing aid that provides a sensation of sound by directly stimulating the auditory nerve. Presently, there are no questionnaires measuring listening effort available for clinical use. The questions for the new instrument will be developed from patients’ descriptions of listening effort collected in a previous focus group study undertaken by the study team in 2015. To make sure the questionnaire is measuring what it is meant to measure (listening effort) and that patients can understand and answer the questions easily, we will undertake preliminary testing of the draft questionnaire with clinicians, researchers, and patients.\n\nFirst, we will write questions for the questionnaire that ask about aspects of listening effort that are important to patients. Next, we will ask ten cochlear implant clinicians or researchers to rate each question according to 1) how relevant it is to listening effort and 2) how easy it is to understand the question. We will use these ratings to improve the questionnaire. This means we may remove or reword some questions or add new questions. We will then ask 12 adults with hearing loss who are either 1) waiting for their CI surgery or 2) already use a CI to complete the draft questionnaire. Afterwards, each person will have an interview. They will be asked how easy or difficult it was to understand and answer each question. We will ask participants about the questionnaire content and format and whether any information is missing. The participants’ answers will be used to improve the questionnaire and prepare it for further testing of its measurement qualities in a future study.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/SW/0016
Date of REC Opinion
25 Jan 2018
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion