Do Hearing Aids Address Real-World Hearing Difficulties for Adults With Mild Hearing Impairment? Results From a Pilot Study Using Ecological Momentary Assessment.

Current approaches to the measurement of hearing aid benefit typically use clinical or laboratory-based speech perception tests or retrospective self-report surveys. However, when assessing hearing aid outcomes in adults with mild hearing impairment, the traditional outcome measures may not be sufficiently sensitive. An alternative to these techniques are approaches that capture data about real-world experiences as they are experienced, such as ecological momentary assessment. This single-subject experimental design pilot study investigated the feasibility of using ecological momentary assessment in assessing whether hearing aids make a difference to the real-world listening experiences of adults with mild hearing impairment. Ten participants with an average age of 70 years and no previous amplification experience answered survey questions on their listening experiences over a 4-week period (1 week without hearing aids, 2 weeks with hearing aids, and 1 week without hearing aids). A total of 860 surveys were collected. Participants reported significantly better speech understanding and less listening effort during the 2-week trial with hearing aids compared to baseline conditions. In addition, they reported that they were significantly less hampered by their hearing difficulties and had greater enjoyment of listening events with wearing hearing aids. Individual variation in hearing aid benefit was evident. This pilot study showed that ecological momentary assessment has potential to quantify self-reported aided benefit for individuals with mild hearing impairment fitted with hearing aids. This research also highlighted that a real-world approach is needed to explore individualized outcomes and provide different insights to standardized questionnaires.