A Simplified Patient-Centered Educational Tool for Improved Hearing-Aid Outcomes

A Simplified Patient Centered Educational Tool for Improved Hearing Aid Outcomes

Hearing loss is the second most prevalent service-connected disability among Veterans. Hearing aids are the most common technological intervention for hearing loss. The VA, therefore, spends a considerable amount of money on them. Despite these expenditures, there are some Veterans who do not use their hearing aids successfully. Research has demonstrated that this inconsistent use may be related to a patient's inability to effectively take care of, and use, hearing aids. The proposed investigation will compare the effectiveness of three different tools for enhancing the educational efforts (hearing-aid orientation) typically provided by clinical audiologists when dispensing hearing aids. Each of these educational tools were developed using established methods for improving patient-provider communication. The investigators hypothesize that the use of these tools will result in better hearing-aid outcomes for Veteran patients than using the current standard-of-care procedures.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Hearing Loss
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Standard of Care; Other: Hearing-Aid Informational Guide; Other: Hearing-Aid DVD; Behavioral: Teach-back Technique

Detailed Description

Objectives: Reasons for non-use of hearing aids are varied, but many studies have suggested that a lack of knowledge about how to use and/or take care of the hearing aids is a major factor. This is not surprising given that other healthcare fields have reported that between 40-80% of information provided during a clinical appointment is forgotten by the patient immediately after the appointment and almost half of what is remembered is not correct. The long-term goal of this project is to improve the delivery of information during the hearing-aid orientation, as better delivery of information will result in better hearing-aid handling skills and thus better overall hearing-aid outcomes. To accomplish this goal, the investigators propose to refine and evaluate the effectiveness of three forms of supplemental hearing-aid-orientation tools, each of which was developed using established guidelines for good patient-provider communication.

Plan: The purpose of the proposed application is to evaluate the relative effectiveness of four forms of hearing-aid orientation provided to first time hearing-aid users, three of which use some of the aforementioned strategies to enhance the standard of care. The four forms of orientation will be: (1) the standard-of-care hearing-aid orientation; (2) the standard of care plus provision a hearing-aid information guide (HAIG) (3) the standard of care supplemented by an explanation of its content using the talk-back technique to confirm patient understanding; and (4) the standard of care plus provision of a take-home hearing-aid orientation DVD (HAO DVD). The content of the HAIG will be field tested and finalized following input obtained via focus groups with clinical audiologists and first-time hearing aid users.

Methods: For the field testing up to 16 clinical audiologists and 10 new hearing aid user Veterans will be recruited to participate in focus groups during which they will view and then be asked questions about the content of the HAIG. Information learned during these focus groups will then be incorporated into the HAIG, at which time they will be ready for use in the study. For the comparative effectiveness study, up to 468 hearing-impaired Veterans who are about to become first-time hearing-aid users will be enrolled to participate in this investigation. These individuals will be recruited from the VA Portland Health Care System's Audiology and Speech Pathology Service (ASPS). Prior to receiving their hearing aids, subjects will be enrolled in the study at the National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (NCRAR), and will conduct health literacy, manual dexterity and hepatic sensitivity, visual acuity, and learning and memory assessments. They will then attend their hearing aid fitting in the ASPS and will receive standard-of-care hearing-aid orientation. At the end of that appointment, they will receive one of the four study interventions. Subjects will return to the NCRAR 4-6 weeks after the hearing-aid-fitting appointment to complete the following outcome measures: a knowledge and practical test regarding hearing-aid use and care, a measure of self-efficacy, and a measure of hearing-aid outcomes. They also will be interviewed so that the investigators can learn their opinions about the intervention. A subset of the initial 50 participants enrolled into each study arm will attend a second follow-up appointment 6 months after the fitting appointment so the investigators can examine longer-term impacts of the hearing aid orientation interventions.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 269
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Oregon
    • Portland, Oregon, United States, 97239
      • VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 50 years to 89 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

Participants will be Veterans who are receiving hearing aids from the Audiology Clinic at the VA Portland Health Care System and who have had no prior experience using hearing aids. To be included in the study, participants will:

• Be approved and have plans to get bilateral hearing aid fitting at the VA Portland Health Care System .
• Be able to read and converse in English.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Be younger than 50 years or older than 89 years of age.
• Have a documented diagnosis of neurological, cognitive, visual, or other mental disorder, such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, current alcohol or substance abuse, as determined by chart review that would interfere with study completion.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Standard of care (SoC); standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist	Other: Standard of Care; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist
Experimental: SoC plus hearing-aid informational guide; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist plus a take-home informational guide regarding their hearing aids	Other: Standard of Care; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist; Other: Hearing-Aid Informational Guide; Printed take-home guide on hearing aids
Experimental: SoC plus hearing aid DVD; SoC hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist plus a take-home hearing aid digital video disc	Other: Standard of Care; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist; Other: Hearing-Aid DVD; Take-home DVD about hearing aids
Experimental: Soc plus teach-back technique; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist plus a teach-back technique session reviewing information on the hearing aids	Other: Standard of Care; standard of care hearing-aid orientation as provided by clinical audiologist; Behavioral: Teach-back Technique; Counseling/Educational session using the teach-back technique to review information about their hearing aids

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Hearing Aid Skills and Knowledge Test	Hearing Aid Skills and Knowledge measures knowledge and skills for tasks associated with hearing aid management, such as knowledge of and ability to change batteries, insert the hearing aid, etc. For knowledge scale, participant gives a verbal response. Items are assigned points: 0 (incorrect response) or 1 (correct response). For skills scale, participant conducts the required task. Items are assigned points: 0 (Could not perform task), 1 (Achieved with some difficulty, more than one attempt) or 2 (Achieved with no difficulty on first attempt). There were 15 knowledge items and 19 skill items. Percent correct was computed for each scale separately. Points were totaled, divided by the no. items with valid data, and multiplied by 100, with a correction to equate subscales. For the skills scale, percent correct scores were calculated based upon the notion that a value of 2 was considered 100% correct, 1 was considered 50% correct.	4 weeks after the hearing-aid fitting

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
The Measure of Audiologic Rehabilitation Self-Efficacy for Hearing Aids	12-item questionnaire assessing self-efficacy for basic and advanced hearing aid handling skills. Item responses are on a scale of 0 to 100 in 10 point increments. Score of 0 = no self efficacy to100 = complete self efficacy. Final score is an average of individual item responses.	4 weeks after the hearing-aid fitting
International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids.	Hearing-aid outcomes questionnaire assessing benefit, satisfaction, use, etc. Seven items, each on a scale of 1-5. 1 = low satisfaction/benefit/use etc., 5 = maximum satisfaction/benefit/use etc. A total score is derived by summing the score from each of the seven items. Total scores range from a low of 7 to a high of 35.	4 weeks after the hearing-aid fitting

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: VA Office of Research and Development
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: M. Samantha Lewis, PhD, VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR; Principal Investigator: Gabrielle H Saunders, VA Portland Health Care System, Portland, OR

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 1, 2014
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 30, 2016
• Study Completion (Actual): September 30, 2016

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 9, 2013
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2013
• First Posted (Estimate): September 12, 2013

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 21, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 19, 2019
• Last Verified: February 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: rehabilitation; counseling; hearing aids; outcomes assessment (health care)
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Nervous System Diseases; Neurologic Manifestations; Otorhinolaryngologic Diseases; Ear Diseases; Sensation Disorders; Hearing Disorders; Hearing Loss
• Other Study ID Numbers: C1260-R; 1I01RX001260-01 (U.S. NIH Grant/Contract); 3224 (Portland VA IRB)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No