The Cochlear Implant Use Questionnaire: Assessing Habits and Barriers to Use.

OBJECTIVE

The objective was to design a questionnaire to identify daily cochlear implant (CI) use habits and barriers to daily CI use and to administer this questionnaire to adult CI users. We hypothesized that recipients who reported a greater number of barriers to daily CI use would show lower daily CI use.

STUDY DESIGN

Questionnaire.

SETTING

Academic medical center.

PATIENTS

Hundred adult CI recipients.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Questionnaire responses and amount of CI use per day as measured from the CI software.

RESULTS

The cochlear implant use questionnaire (CIUQ) was created and responses were obtained from 100 participants. The CIUQ yielded an average overall score of 23 (range, 3-54) out of 100; responses were variable, and CI recipients experienced different barriers to using their CI processor. The CIUQ overall score was significantly correlated with recipients' daily CI use (h/d) (rs = -0.561, p < 0.0001, 95% confidence interval [-0.694, -0.391]), which provides evidence of construct validity. Responses were immediately useful for identifying and overcoming barriers to consistent CI use with our study participants.

CONCLUSIONS

Increasing evidence suggests that daily CI use is correlated with speech recognition outcomes. To optimize outcomes, clinicians should consider implementing this questionnaire to identify and overcome barriers to consistent, full-time CI processor use.