By John E. Tecca and Kristy K. Deiters
This article is a part of the May/June 2017, Volume 29, Number 3, Audiology Today issue.
Surveys designed for use in audiological practice have been available for many years. Possibly beginning with the Hearing Handicap Scale (High, 1964), surveys have been developed for varied applications, such as quantifying handicap or disability and for documenting outcomes of rehabilitation. The modern era of surveys for audiological practice arguably began in the early 1980s. There followed a proliferation of surveys for use in both pre- and post-hearing aid fitting applications. Dillon (2012) devoted an entire chapter of his text, Hearing Aids II, to this topic which included more than 35 surveys available at that time. Other articles are available to help audiologists with the selection of an appropriate survey to their clinical needs (Bentler and Kramer, 2000; Humes, 2004).
There are many reasons to use outcome measures in clinical practice (Dillon, 2012). For example, a practice may wish to document the benefit of their hearing aid fitting program, to determine perceived benefit of some circuit option, to provide efficacy data to some third-party payer or perhaps to follow best practice guidelines. Kochkin, et al (2010) found that as more elements of best practices were incorporated into the hearing aid fitting process, including outcome measures, benefit significantly increased. Outcome measures are now considered a component of hearing aid related best practices by two major organizations representing audiologists (Valente, 2006; ASHA, 1998). However, two surveys of clinical practice indicate that only 30–40 percent of audiologists make use of outcome measures (Lindley, 2006; Brook, 2013).
Several years ago, we committed our practice to include outcome measures for evaluating results of our hearing aid fittings. Quite simply, we wanted to determine if our hearing aid fittings were successful from the patient perspective. Cox, et al (2016) stated, “In the long run, it is the performance in daily living in the circumstances of the particular listener that determines the usefulness of a hearing aid fitting.” Dillon (2012) stated, “Outcome measures keep us grounded as to what we are, and are not, really achieving, from the perspective of the client.” We had no evidence that we were actually doing as good a job as we thought. Experience has taught us that in a small number of cases, problems become apparent over a period of time. Some patients will not ask for help, either believing nothing can be done or not wanting to be a bother. Using an outcome measure makes us proactive.
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