The work in the Centralized Clinical Database was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Danish Society for Otorhinolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery on April 26th, 2019by Anne Wolff;
Self-reported Health-related Quality of Life in a cohort of Danish adults with hearing impairment before and after hearing-aid rehabilitation
Anne Wolff1, Jesper Hvass Schmidt2,3,4, Sabina Storbjerg Houmøller2,3,4, Vijay Narne3, Dan Dupont Hougaard1,5, Michael Gaihede1,5, Gérard Loquet5, Dorte Hammershøi6
1Department of Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery and Audiology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
2Department of ORL – Head & Neck Surgery and Audiology Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark
3Department of Clinical Research, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
4OPEN, Odense Patient data Explorative Network, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark
5Department of Clinical Medicine, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
6Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
Introduction: The 15-Dimension instrument (15D) is a standardized, self-administered, generic questionnaire that provides a profile (D1-15 score) and a single index score (D15-score) as a measure of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) on a scale with a range between zero and one. Moreover, this questionnaire includes a question related to hearing (D3). When completed before and after hearing aid (HA) treatment, this questionnaire assesses the potential benefits of HA treatment on HRQoL.
Method: Prospective clinical trial with HA treatment as intervention. The data were collected by means of self-reported questionnaires (15D and a basic health-related questionnaire) before and two months following HA-fitting. The study population (n=1536) comprised of both first time HA users (n=1096) and experienced HA users (n=440) enrolled in the multicenter better hearing rehabilitation (BEAR) project.
Results: HA treatment resulted in improved mean score of D3 for both new (∆D3: mean, SD (0.102; 0.19) and experienced (∆D3: mean, SD (0.083; 0.20) HA users following 2 months of HA use. Patients with both “moderate to severe” and “severe” hearing loss, defined by the GBD hearing impairment classification, experienced a significant improvement in D3.
Discussion: The study supports that HA usage has a positive effect on HRQoL and that HA treatment results in improved HRQoL when looking at the hearing dimension. Degree of hearing loss alone does not explain the positive effect observed. Therefore, additional parameters need to be studied in order to explain which factors are essential for patients with HL to be able to achieve an improvement of HRQoL following HA-fitting.
