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. 2024 Jul;35(7-08):178-184.
doi: 10.1055/s-0044-1791212. Epub 2024 Dec 19.

Self-reported Hearing Quality of Life for Adolescent Cochlear Implant Recipients: A Longitudinal Study

Lisa S Davidson  1 , Ann E Geers  2 , Rosalie M Uchanski  1 , Kathryn Siu  3
Affiliations

Self-reported Hearing Quality of Life for Adolescent Cochlear Implant Recipients: A Longitudinal Study

Lisa S Davidson et al. J Am Acad Audiol. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Clinicians are increasingly interested in self-reported hearing-specific quality of life (HQoL) for cochlear implant (CI) recipients, including pediatric CI recipients.

Purpose: (1) To compare HQoL of adolescent CI recipients to those of peers with typical hearing (TH); (2) to examine, longitudinally, HQoL for a set of CI recipients; and (3) to determine the effects of child, demographic, audiological, speech perception, and language variables on adolescent HQoL.

Research design: Hearing Environments and Reflections on Quality of Life (HEARQL) questionnaires were completed by children with CIs at elementary (HEARQL-26) and adolescent (HEARQL-28) ages.

Study sample: Eighty CI recipients and 21 children with TH.

Data collection and analysis: HEARQL-28 scores for the CI and TH groups were compared using nonparametric tests. Regression models were used to examine longitudinal results and to explore predictor variables for adolescent CI participants' HEARQL-28 scores.

Results: HEARQL-28 scores for CI participants were lower than those of peers with TH. For both CI and TH adolescents, the HEARQL subscale with the lowest score is "Hearing Situations." CI participants' HEARQL scores at elementary age were not significantly correlated with scores at adolescence. Over 70% of unexplained variance remains even after inclusion of variables with established contributions to traditional CI benefit.

Conclusions: Self-reported HEARQL scores are largely unexplained for pediatric CI recipients; multidisciplinary explorations of other sources of variance, such as social, emotional, and psychosocial factors, should be pursued.

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Conflict of interest statement

None declared.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Box-plots of four subscales and total HEARQL-28 scores for participants with cochlear implants (CI) and typical hearing (TH).
Figure 2:
Figure 2:
Scatter-plot of HEARQL-28 (Adolescent) versus HEARQL-26 (Elementary-age) scores for participants with CIs, with device-configuration at adolescence indicated by symbol. BM: bimodal; seqCI: sequential bilateral CIs; simCI: simultaneous bilateral CIs.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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