BAHA in single-sided deafness: patient compliance and subjective benefit.
OBJECTIVE
Despite most patients with single-sided deafness (SSD) after operation for acoustic neuroma (AN) perceiving a significant hearing handicap, less than 25% are interested in bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) implantation. We evaluated the treatment compliance of BAHA in SSD and the effect of BAHA on the subjective handicap.


METHODS
Part 1: It was determined, from our first study, how many of the SDD patients after operation for AN (n = 59) and interested in BAHA (n = 14) had been implanted. Part 2: Of 23 BAHA-implanted patients with SSD due to various causes, including the implanted patients from the previous study, 21 answered a questionnaire on the BAHA treatment compliance and the subjective handicap with and without BAHA.


RESULTS
Part 1: Of the 14 patients from our first study who were interested in implantation for BAHA, 11 had been implanted (18.6% of all 59 patients). Part 2: Of the 21 patients with SSD, 95% still used BAHA, and of these, 81% used it more than 8 hours a day. Of the patients, 90% considered BAHA a moderate to significant aid; it reduced the subjective hearing handicap from 7.4 to 2.3 arbitrary units on a visual analog scale.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite the subjective handicap perception among most patients with SSD after AN surgery, less than 20% chose treatment with BAHA. Conversely, patients with SSD choosing implantation had high treatment compliance and felt that BAHA reduced their handicap. Thus, when selected by the patients after testing, BAHA is effective in SSD and results in a high patient compliance.
Schrøder
Stine Attrup
SA
Department of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Gentofte Hospital, University of Copenhagen, Hellerup, Denmark. stine.as@gmail.com
Ravn
Tomaas
T
Bonding
Per
P
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006310:Hearing Aids; D046088:Hearing Loss, Unilateral / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010349:Patient Compliance; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D019919:Prosthesis Implantation; D013017:Sound Localization / Q000502:physiology; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D053441:Suture Anchors; D016896:Treatment Outcome