Efficacy of Hearing Aid Orientation on New Digital and Analog Hearing Aid Users

Background and Objective: Clinical experience indicates audiologists typically spend at least 15–20 min for a hearing aid orientation (HAO). Audiologists demonstrate the viewpoint that the information disseminated during an HAO is important for patients to learn and remember in order to use hearing aids effectively and independently. The present study was an investigation of new hearing aid users’ ability to remember the information presented in a typical HAO session. The aim of the study was to compare between new analog and digital hearing aid users for recognition of the hearing aid orientation. Method: In the present study, 57 subjects within the age range of 35 to 65 years were selected for administering the Hearing Aid Knowledge Inventory (HAKI; Reese, 2001) after hearing aid orientation. Result: Result showed that the digital hearing aid users were better oriented towards the program, showing greater percentage of people following the prescribed procedure for hearing aid maintenance and proper utilization compared to analog users. Conclusion: From the present findings we can conclude, that the socio-economic status of the hearing aid user might be playing an important role in gaining hearing aid knowledge as the analog user mostly belongs to lower socio-economic status with intellectual inefficiency than the digital hearing aid user. Key Words: HAKI, HAO, Analog, Digital, Hearing aid users