Psychometric Validation of the Chinese Versions of the Effort Assessment Scale and Vanderbilt Fatigue Scale for Adults-10 for Assessing Listening Effort and Fatigue.

The study was done at one hospital clinic, so it may not apply to community samples or to people already using hearing aids or cochlear implants. All participants were unaided and had no prior experience with hearing aids or cochlear implants, so the findings may not reflect listening effort and fatigue after amplification. The design measured people at a single time point, so it can show associations but not whether hearing loss, tinnitus, effort, and fatigue cause one another. The unilateral hearing loss group had only 22 people and was not included in some analyses, so ear-symmetry differences are unclear. The effort scale showed item-level problems, so total scores are the safe use and item-level interpretation is not supported. The effort and fatigue scales correlated strongly, so a high score on one may partly reflect the other construct. Missingness was limited to C-EAS item 4, with 24 of 701 responses missing (3.4%), and item-level analyses required imputation. The scales were tested only in Chinese-speaking adults, so generalisation to other languages or cultures is uncertain.

The funding statement lists Chinese government and university grants, including the National Key Research and Development Project of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Major Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Major Fundamental Research Program of Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province, the Taishan Scholars Program of Shandong Province, the Medical Health Science and Technology Project of Shandong Province, and the Horizontal Project of Shandong University. It does not mention a commercial funder.

Do not read these scales as evidence that an intervention reduces listening effort or fatigue. The study tested measurement properties in unaided adults and did not evaluate treatment effects.