Remote hearing aid renewal using pre-existing audiograms during the covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Objective

During the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, many patients cancelled their scheduled hearing aid renewal. We offered to send them new hearing aids programmed according to the audiometric data on file. In this study we compared remote hearing aid renewal to a conventional renewal with a recent audiogram based on scores from the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) questionnaire. We also examined the need for a physical visit for hearing aid adjustment in the remote group and analysed the accuracy of the pre-existing audiogram correction method using data from the control group.

Design

Retrospective chart review.

Study sample

51 patients who underwent remote hearing aid renewal and 22 control patients who received office-based hearing aid renewal.

Results

IOI-HA scores were lower in the remote fitted group, but comparison with data from a Swedish nationwide database had no clinically significant differences. A follow-up physical appointment was required in only 20% of the remote group. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between the pure tone averages of the corrected former audiogram and measured audiogram was high.

Conclusions

Remote hearing aid renewal using existing audiometric data is feasible, and most physical visits can be avoided.

Keywords:

• Covid-19
• hearing aids
• hearing aid satisfaction
• teleaudiology/telehealth

Acknowledgements

The authors are deeply grateful to Tuomas Selander, M.Sc., for his invaluable help with the statistical analyses performed in this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.