Hearing Aid Adoption is Associated with the Type of Significant Other in Attendance at Hearing Care Appointments.
Blair K Ellis, Gurjit Singh, Stefan Launer
PMID 36444131WHAT IT FOUND
Patients who came to a first hearing care appointment with a relative or partner were more likely to adopt hearing aids than those who came alone.
Friends and carers did not show this pattern.
Key findings
01Compared with attending alone, hearing aid adoption odds were significantly higher when patients attended with a child, parent, partner, or sibling.
02Compared with attending alone, hearing aid adoption odds were not significantly different when patients attended with a carer or a friend.
03Attending with any significant other was associated with higher odds of hearing aid adoption than attending alone.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used existing records, so it did not assign who attended the appointment and cannot show that a significant other caused hearing aid adoption. Hearing aid adoption was defined as initial uptake or purchase, not continued use, and there was no information about follow-up attendance or hearing aid data logging. Clinicians recorded significant other relationships in free text, which required classification and led to data losses. Audiometric hearing loss data were available only for a subset of patients (n = 2,746), so the main analysis could not fully account for hearing loss severity. Some significant other categories were very small (carer n = 28, parent n = 76, sibling n = 208), so those estimates are less stable. The sample came from private UK audiology clinics, where patients likely paid for hearing aids, so results may not apply to publicly funded services or other settings. The study did not measure relationship strength, support quality, conflict, or socio-economic factors that could influence adoption.
Declared interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest and received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that bringing a family member causes hearing aid adoption. The study used existing records, did not assign who attended, and only measured initial adoption, not continued use.