Health-related quality of life in children and adolescents with cochlear implants: self and proxy reports

Abstract

Conclusions: Cochlear implantation appears to favour the perception of improved quality of life (QoL) among children and adolescents. Similar trends were observed among the responses of deaf children and their parents. However, parents of deaf children perceive fewer feelings of provocation than children and adolescents. Objective: This study aimed to assess health-related QoL (HRQoL) among prelingual profoundly deaf children and adolescents with cochlear implants and to compare the responses of these children to those of their parents. Methods: Our sample consisted of deaf children and adolescents with cochlear implants and two control groups: hearing children and adolescents and deaf children and adolescents. The ages of the participants ranged between 8 and 18 years. Parents and children/adolescents were surveyed using the Kidscreen-52, which is a generic instrument for assessing the HRQoL of children and adolescents. Structured interviews were conducted with parents to collect information and clinical histories, and the Graffar scale was used to assess socioeconomic status. Results: The hearing participants exhibited significantly higher QoL than the deaf participants without implants in nearly all domains. In contrast, although hearing participants exhibited a slightly higher QoL than implanted deaf children, these differences were smaller and failed to reach statistical significance.

Keywords::

• Cochlear implantation
• deafness
• normal hearing
• health promotion

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Institute for Rehabilitation (INR) (Portugal). The authors would like to thank the children, adolescents, families, schools, teachers and sign language interpreters who participated in this study. The authors also thank the Central Administration of the Health System ACSS (Portugal) for providing access to the database.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.