Abstract
Objective: To investigate hearing aid owners’ decisions to attend or not attend an annual hearing aid review appointment. To investigate possible factors associated with appointment attendance, including age, gender, transportation, travel time, hearing aid use, and hearing aid benefit.
Design: A prospective cohort study. Potential participants were notified of their annual hearing aid review appointment in the usual process employed by their clinic. Two months later, potential participants were identified as those who had attended and those who had not attended an appointment.
Study sample: One hundred and twenty adult hearing aid users ranging in age from 26 to 100 (M = 74, SD = 11) years recruited from a single hearing clinic in Perth, Western Australia.
Results: Factors found to be significantly associated with attendance at an annual hearing aid review appointment included hearing aid funding source (government subsidised), participants valuing the importance and benefit of the appointment, and superior hearing aid outcomes.
Conclusions: Within a controlled practice setting, appointment attendance is influenced by some factors modifiable by the clinician, including reducing the cost of the appointment or including them in the initial costs of the rehabilitation program, providing more flexible delivery methods to avoid barriers due to distance/transportation, and providing better education about the content and purpose of the HAR appointment.
Design: A prospective cohort study. Potential participants were notified of their annual hearing aid review appointment in the usual process employed by their clinic. Two months later, potential participants were identified as those who had attended and those who had not attended an appointment.
Study sample: One hundred and twenty adult hearing aid users ranging in age from 26 to 100 (M = 74, SD = 11) years recruited from a single hearing clinic in Perth, Western Australia.
Results: Factors found to be significantly associated with attendance at an annual hearing aid review appointment included hearing aid funding source (government subsidised), participants valuing the importance and benefit of the appointment, and superior hearing aid outcomes.
Conclusions: Within a controlled practice setting, appointment attendance is influenced by some factors modifiable by the clinician, including reducing the cost of the appointment or including them in the initial costs of the rehabilitation program, providing more flexible delivery methods to avoid barriers due to distance/transportation, and providing better education about the content and purpose of the HAR appointment.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 101-108 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | International Journal of Audiology |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Feb 2020 |