Audiological approaches to address the psychosocial needs of adults with hearing loss : perceived benefit and likelihood of use

OBJECTIVE : To explore the perceived benefit and likely implementation of approaches used by audiologists to address their adult clients’ psychosocial needs related to hearing loss. DESIGN : Adults with hearing loss and audiologists completed separate, but related, surveys to rate their perceived benefit and also their likely use of 66 clinical approaches (divided over seven themes) that aim to address psychosocial needs related to hearing loss. STUDY SAMPLE : A sample of 52 Australian adults with hearing loss, and an international sample of 19 audiologists. RESULTS : Overall, participants rated all of the approaches highly on both benefit and likelihood of use; the highest ranked theme was Providing Emotional Support. Cohort comparisons showed that audiologists ranked the approaches significantly higher than did adults with hearing loss. Overall, participants ranked the themes higher on benefit than on the likelihood to use scales. CONCLUSIONS : Adults with hearing loss and audiologists recognise the importance of approaches that address the psychosocial impacts of hearing loss in audiological rehabilitation. However, both groups placed slightly greater value on the internal-based approaches (the clients own emotional response, empowerment, and responsibility), and slightly less emphasis on the external-based approaches (being supported by communication partners, support groups or other health professionals).Appendix 1. Theme and individual item mean (SD) scores, by participant type. The themes (7 in total) and statements (66 in total) are listed from highest to lowest ratings.Appendix 2. Internal consistency, examined using Cronbach’s alpha, for all themes, for both rating questions (participant groups separately).Appendix 3. The significance of the rank order of the themes as generated by the perceived benefit rating data (participant groups combined) were examined using independent t-tests, with Bonferroni corrected p-values below 0.0023 indicating significance. Significant values are in bold type.Appendix 4. The significance of the rank order of the themes as generated by the perceived likelihood of use rating data (participant groups combined) were examined using independent t-tests, with Bonferroni corrected p-values below 0.0023 indicating significance. Significant differences are in bold type.http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/iija202021-11-11hj2021Speech-Language Pathology and Audiolog