Communication strategies, personal adjustments, and need for recovery in employees with hearing loss who receive a communication group-training

Abstract

Purpose

Communication group-trainings are part of current aural rehabilitation practices, but their effect has not yet been investigated systematically in working adults. The purpose of this study was to describe the communication strategies (CS), personal adjustments (PA) and need for recovery (NFR) of employees with hearing loss before and directly after a communication group-training.

Methods

Nine employees were included at two audiological centres that provided a different group-training. Two online questionnaires were completed, at baseline and after completing the training.

Results

Most employees used more adequate CS after the group-training, but there seems to be a difference between the improvement in PA between the centres. No trends towards a decrease in NFR were observed.

Conclusion

It is still challenging to reduce the work difficulties that are encountered by employees with hearing loss. The inter-centre differences point out a need for standardization. Suggestions for improvements are provided and should be further investigated in a larger population.

Keywords:

• Adaptation
• communication training
• hearing loss
• psychological
• work

Acknowledgements

We thank Libra Revalidation and Audiology and Adelante Audiology and Communication for participating in this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

No funding was received for conducting this study.