Assessing Hearing-Related Quality of Life in Adults With Hearing Loss: Validation of the German Cochlear Implant Quality of Life (CIQOL)-35 Profile.

Everyone who took part volunteered through an implant clinic, a rehabilitation clinic or an implant association, so people with a strong interest in the topic or a good link to services are likely over-represented. The sample was younger and more often female than the German implant registry reports: here 26% were aged 65 to 85 and 65% were women, while registry data for 2022 show about 40% aged 65 to 85 and roughly equal numbers of men and women. Only a handful of participants did not have an implant, so the questionnaire was barely tested in people who are being considered for an implant but have not had surgery yet, even though that was the intention. Nobody filled the questionnaire in twice, so there is no evidence that the same person gives the same answers on different days; the authors chose internal consistency instead and accept this as a limitation. The NCIQ was always answered second in the survey and came with a warning that some of its wording may be outdated, which may have increased the number of skipped answers on it. Adults with hearing loss in one ear only were excluded, though they are a growing group, and the questionnaire has not been tested in them. The authors did not test whether scores change after implantation or line up with speech recognition, implant use or wearing time.

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship or publication of the article. Four authors declared no conflicts of interest. One author, T. R. McRackan, sits on the Medical Advisory Board for Envoy Medical.

Do not read this as evidence that the questionnaire detects change after implantation. The study only checked that it measures consistently at a single point in time; the authors did not test whether scores move with speech recognition, implant use or surgery, and nobody answered it twice. It also left out adults with hearing loss in one ear only, so its scores in that group are unknown.