Rodrigo Ordoñez1, Katja Lund1, Jens Bo Nielsen2, Palle Rye1, Oscar M. Cañete2, Amalie T. Stubberup3, Lotte S. E. Petersen4, Jesper H. Schmidt3, Dan D. Hougaard4, Michael Gaihede4, Gérard Loquet3,4, Dorte Hammershøi1
1Department of Electronic Systems, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
2Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark
3Department of Oto-rhino-laryngology, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark
4Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery and Audiology, Aalborg University Hospital, Aalborg, Denmark
In order to investigate hearing-aid user experience, patients participating in a clinical trial from the Better hEAring Rehabilitation project, are given the opportunity to register their experiences with their new hearing aids during a two-month period between initial fitting and a follow-up session. Experiences are registered using an on-line system that allows users to report whether or not they have experienced a series of predefined sentences (user atoms) related to everyday use of hearing aids. These user atoms are presented individually, each requiring a response from the patient. As part of the clinical trial, patients are also administered aided-performance tests in a controlled sound environment. These tests are carried out prior to reporting experiences in the on-line system and after the initial fitting as well as at the two-month follow-up session. The present contribution presents the initial data collected with the on-line system with respect to uptake of the system, frequency of use, response rate, probabilities of positive experiences and progression over time. Furthermore, a comparison of the results from the aided performance test and the experiences registered in the on-line system from a cohort of 53 patients that participated in a pilot study of the clinical trial is presented. The aim of the data analysis is to investigate how hearing-aid patients use the system and to compare in-clinic aided performance measures to out-of-clinic self-reported experiences of use.
Acknowledgements: The work has been done as a part of the Better Hearing Rehabilitation Project funded by Innovation Fund Denmark and Partners (including Force Technology, Oticon, GN Hearing, and Widex Sivantos Audiology). Funding and collaboration are sincerely appreciated. The project number is 5164-00011B.