Online Reviews of Hearing Aid Acquisition and Use: A Qualitative Thematic Analysis.

PURPOSE

Online reviews have become increasingly common for consumers to share their experiences about products and to assist potential consumers with decision making. The current study was aimed to understand the hearing aid user experience from online consumer reviews using qualitative analysis.

METHOD

The study used a qualitative thematic analysis to analyze open text responses from consumers leaving hearing aid reviews on the http://www.HearingTracker.com website. One thousand three hundred seventy-eight online consumer hearing aid reviews (open-text responses) were extracted and analyzed.

RESULTS

Three domains emerged within the data set, containing 11 themes and 136 subthemes. Domain one (Clinical Processes) contained two themes: Hearing Assessment and Hearing Aid Acquisition. Domain two (The Device) contained five themes: Function, Performance, Physical, Device Management, and Maintenance. Domain three (The Person) contained four themes: Satisfaction, Quality of Life, Personal Adjustment, and Knowledge. The themes gave an understanding that there were a contribution of factors that formed part of a consumers hearing aid user experience.

CONCLUSIONS

Hearing aid users described a range of positive, negative, and neutral descriptions online about their hearing aid user experience and gave advice to fellow hearing aid users helping clinicians improve their hearing aid fitting skills in practice. These findings have implications to future product development as well as service delivery model in terms of developing strategies for fostering patient-centered audiological practice.