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Candidacy of bilateral hearing aids: a retrospective multi-center study

S. Theo Goverts
Sophia E. Kramer
Joost M. Festen
VU University Medical Center, dept. of Audiology, de Boelelaan 1117, 1083 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Wouter A. Dreschler
Academic Medical Center, dept. of Clinical and Experimental Audiology, Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Correspondence: Monique Boymans, Academic Medical Center, dept. of Clinical and Experimental Audiology Meibergdreef 9, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands Telephone: +31 20 566 3503, Fax: +31 20 566 9068, Email: m.boymans{at}amc.nl

This study was funded by the Health Care Insurance Board and the Dutch Ministry of Health.

This study focuses on the candidacy of bilateral hearing aid fittings. Clinical files of 1000 consecutive hearing aid fittings were analyzed. Case history, audiometric, and rehabilitation data were collected from clinical files and an extensive questionnaire on long-term outcome measures were conducted. All data were analyzed in order to find factors for refining candidacy criteria for bilateral fittings.

505 questionnaires were returned after at least two years of hearing aid use. In order to compare differences in benefits between unilateral and bilateral fittings, two subgroups were composed in which most relevant variables (age, degree of hearing loss, and audiometric asymmetry) were matched for unilateral fittings (n=212) and bilateral fittings (n=477). The bilaterally group had significant higher benefit scores than the unilaterally group for detection, speech intelligibility in reverberation, and localization, but poorer scores for comfort of loud sounds. The benefit of bilateral hearing aids was not significantly related to the level of technology of the hearing aids.

The analysis of the relation between objective parameters and the subjective outcome measures showed that candidacy for a successful bilateral fitting could not be predicted from age, maximum speech intelligibility, employment, exposure to background noise, and social activities.

KEY WORDS: hearing loss, hearing aids, bilateral, speech intelligibility

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