The feasibility of an m-health educational programme (m2Hear) to improve outcomes in first-time hearing aid users

Abstract

Objective

To (i) assess the delivery, accessibility, usability, acceptability, and adherence, and (ii) identify suitable outcome measures, for a mobile-enhanced multimedia educational programme (m2Hear) in first-time hearing aid users.

Design

A prospective, single-centre feasibility study.

Study sample

First-time hearing aid users (n = 59), recruited at their initial hearing assessment. Evaluations were made at 1-week and at 10–12 weeks post-hearing aid fitting.

Results

m2Hear was most commonly accessed via tablets (42.3%). Usability was high for the System Usability Scale (88.5%), and the uMARS, particularly for the Information (M = 4.7), Functionality (M = 4.5) and Aesthetics (M = 4.2) subscales (maximum score = 5). Participant feedback was positive, with a high percent agreeing that m2Hear aided understanding of hearing aids (98%), held their interest (86%), improved confidence to use hearing aids and communicate (84%), and provided additional information to audiologist’s advice (82%). Learnings about practical hearing aid handling/maintenance skills and how to communicate with others were reportedly used equally in participant’s everyday lives. m2Hear was convenient to use, clear, concise and comprehensive. Outcome measures of social participation resulted in large effect sizes (Cohen’s d > 1.6).

Conclusions

A theoretically-driven, personalised and co-designed educational m-health intervention is feasible and beneficial for use in the self-management of hearing loss and hearing aids.

Keywords:

• Multimedia
• education
• personalised
• interactive
• hearing aids
• self-management
• behaviour change
• COM-B

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Claire Benton and the audiologists at the Nottingham Audiology Services who helped them recruit their research participants, and the Health eLearning and Media (HELM) team at University of Nottingham for their technical input into the development of m2Hear. The authors give special thanks to their insightful patient and public involvement panel (Julia Brown, Veronica Colley, Claire Ward), as well as the participants who took part in the research, who ensured the authors had the patient voice embedded firmly in their research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This paper presents independent research funded by the NIHR under its Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) Program [Grant Reference Number PB-PG-0815-20019] and was carried out at the NIHR Nottingham Clinical Research Facilities. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the UK NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.