Clinical evaluation of a computerized self-administered hearing test

Abstract

Objective: To establish the reliability and validity of a computerized self-administered hearing test. Design: Cross-sectional within a comparative study of subjects. Study sample: Subjects were 100 Chinese adults who attended the audiology clinic in a hospital for a hearing test. Results: There was no significant difference in the thresholds of unmasked air-conduction hearing obtained with the computerized self-administered hearing test via a smartphone and those obtained with standard pure-tone audiometry. High test-retest reliability was observed with the self-administered hearing test (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.95), and was comparable with that observed in standard pure-tone audiometry (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.97). The thresholds of the self-administered hearing test measured in a sound-proof booth were not significantly different from those measured in a quiet office room. Conclusions: The results suggest that the computerized self-administered hearing test is a reliable and valid measure of unmasked air-conduction hearing thresholds.

Key Words::

• Pure-tone audiometry
• self-administered
• hearing loss

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully thank Mr. Paul Lee and Mr. Andy Cheng from Ximplar Limited for the technical support in software development, and Miss Zoe Chan for her participation in the data collection.

Declaration of interest: This study was supported by the Direct Grant for Research from the Faculty of Medicine, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The development of the self-administered hearing test application was supported by the Downstream Development Seed Fund from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.