Hearing aid or “band aid”? Evaluating large scale hearing aid donation programmes in the Philippines

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of two large scale hearing aid donation programmes in the Philippines.

Design: Real ear measurements were made on all hearing aids, for comparison to NAL-RP prescription targets. Performance measures and the International Outcomes Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) data was collected from a subsample of participants.

Study sample: A total of 101 and 153 low socioeconomic status participants were sampled just after, or 6 months after receiving their hearing devices in each of the programmes evaluated, respectively.

Results: Of the 189 hearing aids sampled at fitting, and the 195 hearing aids sampled at 6 months post fitting, less than 2% were within ±5dB of prescription target. At 6 months post fitting IOI-HA outcomes were essentially comparable to those described in the literature but were not a good predictor of fit to prescriptive target.

Conclusions: Objective measures of hearing aid outcome were poor and showed no relationship to subjective outcome measures. Although able to fit large numbers in short time frames, to avoid a band aid solution, changes to such programmes should be made including: a focus on those with aidable hearing losses, increased opportunity for follow up care, and improved device quality.

Keywords:

• Behavioural measures
• hearing aids
• hearing aid satisfaction
• instrumentation
• assistive technology

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mrs Cristy Newall for her help and advice with the translation process. The authors would also like to thank the staff and students at the Centre for Audiological Science at the University of Santo Tomas for their assistance with the project.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.