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Abstract
Hearing impairment is one of the most common disabilities among Western populations and represents a considerable communication disorder. Increasing human longevity is expected to raise the number of elderly people suffering from hearing loss. A major challenge of audiological rehabilitation has been to encourage those who have fitted hearing aids to use them. The aim of the present study was to describe hearing-aid use among older adults and to identify motivational factors associated with hearing-aid use. A 17-item questionnaire was developed. Ninety participants (≥65 years of age) were recruited from a waiting list for hearing-aid refitting. Twenty-two percent had used their previously fitted hearing aids for less than one hour per day. A factor analysis revealed four factors related to hearing-aid use (Cronbach's alpha): ‘accepted need’–defined as the acknowledgement of a need for hearing aids (0.869); ‘follow-up support’–defined as organized check-ups and accessibility to professionals (0.900); ‘social assessment’ (0.552); and ‘consciousness’ (0.505). The first two factors explained 25% and 24% of the variance, respectively. Logistic regression revealed that the use of hearing aids was significantly associated with ‘accepted need’ and ‘follow-up support’, suggesting that these factors are important and should be emphasized in rehabilitation programmes.
Acknowledgements
For analyzing the data and preparing the manuscript, the authors received a grant from EXTRA funds from the Norwegian Foundation for Health and Rehabilitation. The authors also wish to thank the Lovisenberg Diakonale Hospital for practical and financial support. The authors report no conflict of interest, and the authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this paper.