Publications by authors named "Barbra Timmer"

Objective: The aim of this study was to use Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to capture how stigma-induced identity threat is experienced by adults with hearing loss and how they respond to such threats in daily life.

Design And Study Sample: Twenty adults with hearing loss from 53 to 88 years (mean age of 69.4 years) completed a range of demographic and stigma questionnaires in the laboratory and, over a two-week period, answered daily EMA surveys.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to explore how adults with hearing loss (HL), their families, and hearing care professionals perceive and deal with the stigma surrounding HL and hearing aids (HAs).
  • - Through semi-structured interviews involving 20 adults with HL, their 20 family members, and 25 hearing care professionals, three main themes emerged regarding responses to stigma: varying willingness to disclose HL and HAs, context-dependent decisions about disclosure, and differing coping strategies among individuals.
  • - The findings highlight that stigma influences how people choose to reveal or conceal their HL and HAs, emphasizing the need for personalized support strategies for those affected.
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Purpose: To identify the number and timing of audiology encounters for adult oncology patients in a tertiary care setting in Australia.

Setting (population): A retrospective case review was completed for 149 patients who received Cisplatin chemotherapy (CT) at a large, publicly funded tertiary hospital in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia between 1st January and 31st December 2019. Patient data was extracted from the Queensland Oncology Repository (QOR) provided by Cancer Alliance Queensland (CAQ).

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Objective: This study aimed to gather opinions and establish consensus among audiologists and patients on supporting individuals with mental health concerns in audiology settings.

Design: Utilising a modified electronic Delphi survey, a panel of 25 experts engaged in three rounds of data collection over 12 weeks. Participants provided open-text responses in Round 1 describing "clinical practices that can be employed to support to patients presenting with mental health concerns", and the research team combined these with relevant clinical practices from literature searches.

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Objective: This study examines the interactional management of hearing difficulties and hearing aids (HAs) in real-life, video-recorded social interactions with adults with hearing loss (HL) and their families/friends.

Design: 32 video-recordings in various social settings were analysed using Conversation Analysis.

Study Sample: 20 adults with HL and their families/friends.

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Background: By enabling individuals with hearing loss to collect their own hearing data in their personal real-world settings, there is scope to improve clinical care, empower consumers, and support shared clinical decision-making and problem-solving. Clinician support for this approach has been established in a separate study.

Objective: This study aims to explore, for consumers with hearing loss, their (1) experiences of listening difficulties, to identify the data an app could usefully collect; (2) preferences regarding the features of mobile apps in general; and (3) opinions on the potential value and desirable features of a yet-to-be designed app for documenting listening difficulties in real-world settings.

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Introduction: Recently, the HEAR-aware app was developed to support adults who are eligible for hearing aids (HAs) but not yet ready to use them. The app serves as a self-management tool, offering assistance for a range of target behaviors (TBs), such as communication strategies and emotional coping. Using ecological momentary assessment and intervention, the app prompts users to complete brief surveys regarding challenging listening situations they encounter in their daily lives (ecological momentary assessment).

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Objectives: To explore when and how stigma-induced identity threat is experienced by adults with hearing loss (HL) and their family members (affiliate stigma) from the perspectives of adults with HL, their family members, and hearing care professionals.

Design: Qualitative descriptive methodology with semi-structured interviews.

Study Sample: Adults with acquired HL ( = 20), their nominated family members ( = 20), and hearing care professionals ( = 25).

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Objectives: Some adults experience challenges in successfully communicating their listening difficulties to their audiologist, and report feeling that they are not always listened to or understood. This project examined adults' recollections of discussions with their audiologist to explore (1) how adults report describing their listening difficulties and (2) information that adults report they do not communicate, or do not communicate successfully, to their audiologist.

Design: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted.

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Objective: To develop a prototype of a decision aid to be used on a website for adults with hearing loss. Development was guided by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards (IPDAS) and included a survey and think-aloud process.

Study Sample: A total of 153 participants completed a survey about what to include in the decision aid (111 adults with hearing loss, 21 family members of adults with hearing loss, and 21 professionals).

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Objective: The effectiveness of audiological monitoring for detecting early hearing changes in patients receiving ototoxic medication could be limited by the lack of adequate audiological ototoxicity monitoring (OtoM) guidelines. This study aimed to evaluate existing OtoM guidelines using the AGREE II tool for guideline evaluation.

Design: Guideline Review.

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Objective: Hearing loss in the older adult population is a significant global health issue. Hearing aids can provide an effective means to address hearing loss and improve quality of life. Despite this, the uptake and continued use of hearing aids is low, with non-use of hearing aids representing a significant problem for effective audiological rehabilitation.

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Objective: This scoping review aimed to identify knowledge gaps in relation to access to, and outcomes from, hearing care services for adults in Malaysia.

Design: Scoping review.

Study Sample: 1261 studies from 4 databases (PubMed, CINAHL, Embase and Scopus) and 7 studies from grey literature were identified.

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Objectives: The HEAR-aware project targets adults ≥50 years who were recently diagnosed with hearing loss and declined hearing aids, but were open for support via a smartphone app on different target behaviors (TBs). The HEAR-aware app, based on Ecological Momentary Assessment and Ecological Momentary Intervention (EMA, EMI), contains educational materials ("snippets") tailored partly to the user's experienced listening situations. The app aims to increase adults' TB-specific readiness to take action on hearing problems.

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: It is unknown how adults communicate about their experienced listening difficulties with their audiologist. This scoping review aims to explore how adults self-describe the listening difficulties that they experience, and how they communicate about them. : A scoping review was conducted between December 2020 and September 2022 to identify published journal articles in which adults described and communicated about their listening difficulties.

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Audiology is experiencing exponential growth in technology, service, and provision options. These advancements give hearing care professionals the opportunity to revise, potentially improve, and adapt to the modern hearing care landscape to better serve the modern consumer. Consumer needs guide care planning and delivery, with the goal of achieving outcomes that are important to both the consumer and the clinician.

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: Best-practice in audiological rehabilitation takes a holistic client- and family-centred approach and considers hearing care in the context of personal well-being. Hearing loss not only impairs the ability to hear, but can also compromise the ability to communicate, thus negatively impacting both social and emotional well-being. Hearing care professionals play a key role in fostering their client's well-being.

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There is growing evidence linking hearing impairment to higher falls risk through alterations in postural stability, with studies showing mixed results. The primary aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the association between hearing impairment and postural instability in older adults, including differences based on severity of hearing impairment. This review was pre-registered in PROSPERO and performed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines across six databases.

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This study aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of adults with hearing impairment (HI), their significant others (SOs), and clinicians regarding the use and provision of wireless microphone systems (WMS). A qualitative descriptive methodology was used, with a total of 43 participants across three groups: (1) 23 adults with HI who used WMS; (2) 7 SOs of adults who used WMS; and (3) 13 clinicians who provided WMSs to adults with HI. Participants completed an individual semi-structured in-depth interview to explore their experiences, with the data analysed using thematic analysis.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives of audiologists to provide input into development of a smartphone application (app) to document the real-life listening difficulties and the listening environment of hearing aid candidates and users.

Method: Two focus groups were conducted. Facilitators utilized a topic guide to generate participants' input and perspectives.

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This preregistered systematic review examined the peer-reviewed scientific literature to determine the effect of hearing aids (HAs) on static and dynamic balance in adults with Hearing Impairment (HI). A search of the English language literature in seven academic databases identified 909 relevant articles published prior to July 2021. Ten articles contained studies that met the inclusion criteria for this review.

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Objective: To investigate the effects of COVID-19 on individuals with tinnitus and their views to guide future tinnitus care.

Design: A mixed-methods cross-sectional research design.

Study Sample: An online survey was completed by 365 individuals with tinnitus from Australia and other countries.

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Objective: There is mounting evidence for implementing family-centred care (FCC) in adult audiology services, however FCC is not typically observed in adult clinical practice. This study implemented an intervention to increase family member attendance and involvement within adult audiology appointments.

Design: The study involved a mixed method design over three key phases: Standard Care, Intervention I (increasing family member attendance), and Intervention II (increasing family member involvement).

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There is little evidence of the concurrent validity of commercially available wrist-worn long battery life activity monitors to measure steps in older adults at slow speeds and with real-world challenges. Forty adults aged over 60 years performed a treadmill protocol at four speeds, a 50-m indoor circuit, and a 200-m outdoor circuit with environmental challenges while wearing a Garmin Vivofit®4, the activPAL3™, and a chest-worn camera angled at the feet. The Garmin Vivofit®4 showed high intraclass correlation coefficients2,1 (.

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Objective: Adult cochlear implant (CI) candidates seeking to make an informed decision about cochlear implantation can find themselves needing to quickly understand large volumes of complex information provided by different professionals in different formats. This study investigates the suitability, within a health literacy context, of one of those sources of information: the CI brochure.

Design: A single-observation design.

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