Correlates of successful hearing aid use in older adults.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate whether age, education, functional handicap, degree of hearing loss, amount of hearing and speech recognition gain achieved with hearing aid, locus of control, visual acuity, manual dexterity, number of comorbid diseases, and number of medications predict which elderly individuals with hearing loss are likely to benefit from hearing aids.


METHODS
A logistic regression prediction model for hearing aid benefit was developed on a training set of 89 individuals and verified in a test set of 87 individuals. Hearing aid success was assessed 4 mo after hearing aid adminstration. It was defined by assessing hearing aid satisfaction, functional handicap change post-hearing aid, and number of hours of weekly hearing aid use.


METHODS
All patients were elderly male veterans from the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital. There were no differences in demographic or clinical characteristics in training versus test set individuals.


RESULTS
Several variables, including baseline perceived functional handicap, education, number of medications, and age correlated with individual success measures. However, no variables consistently correlated with all success measures. The accuracy of prediction rules for success utilizing the variables ranged from 75 to 88% in the training set, and 54 to 84% in the test set.


CONCLUSIONS
Although certain baseline factors were statistically significantly related to individual measures of successful hearing aid use, no factors were good enough to consistently differentiate successful from unsuccessful hearing aid candidates.
Mulrow
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CD
Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.
Tuley
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MR
Aguilar
C
C
D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D012048:Correction of Hearing Impairment; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity