Consumer Perspectives for a Future Mobile App to Document Real-World Listening Difficulties: Qualitative Study.

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.

Adults' recollections of discussions with their audiologist: a qualitative study of what was and was not successfully communicated about listening difficulties.

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.

A scoping review exploring how adults self-describe and communicate about the listening difficulties they experience.

: 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.

Awareness of Usher Syndrome and the Need for Multidisciplinary Care: A Cross-Occupational Survey of Allied Health Clinicians.

Background: Usher syndrome is the most common cause of deaf-blindness, affecting up to 1 in 6000 people. Multidisciplinary care is required to maximize outcomes for individuals and families. This study assessed awareness of Usher Syndrome amongst allied health clinicians who provide care related to the primarily affected senses of hearing and vision, ie, optometry, orthoptics and audiology.

Designing a Hearing Health Care Smartphone App With Ecological Momentary Assessment: A Qualitative Study of Audiologists' Perspectives.

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.

Effects of widespread community use of face masks on communication, participation, and quality of life in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective was to document the influence of face mask use by other people on communication experiences, participation in activities, and quality of life. Australian adults (n = 665) completed an online survey; 90.8% resided in a state with mandatory mask use outside the home and 44.

Willingness to consider and to pay for a variety of telehealth services amongst adult hearing clinic clients.

Objective: To examine willingness to consider and to pay for various one-to-one telehealth appointments and online group training/information sessions amongst hearing service clients interested in future telehealth.

Design: Online survey exploring telehealth usage and attitudes more broadly.

Study Sample: One-hundred-and-sixty-eight (39.

The engagement of children in out-of-home care with nursing and allied health professionals: A scoping review.

Background: Children living in out-of-home care (OOHC) have significant unmet health care needs and use more tertiary and specialist health care services compared with children from similar social and economic backgrounds. Allied health professionals and nurses have a central role in health care; however, very little is known about the engagement of children in OOHC with nursing and allied health professionals. This scoping review addresses this knowledge gap.

Engagement of Children who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Attending Mainstream Schools.

This study compared the observed and the self-reported engagement of 16 students who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) attending mainstream schools to that of matched controls with typical hearing. Observed engagement was measured through observations in the classroom setting using the Mainstream Version of the Code for Instructional Structure and Student Academic Reponses. Self-reported engagement was measured using the Classroom Participation Questionnaire.

Decision making biases in the allied health professions: A systematic scoping review.

Objectives: Cognitive and other biases can influence the quality of healthcare decision making. While substantial research has explored how biases can lead to diagnostic or other errors in medicine, fewer studies have examined how they impact the decision making of other healthcare professionals. This scoping review aimed to identify and synthesise a broad range of research investigating whether decisions made by allied health professionals are influenced by cognitive, affective or other biases.

Interventions to Mitigate Cognitive Biases in the Decision Making of Eye Care Professionals: A Systematic Review.

Significance: Cognitive biases, systematic errors in thinking that impact a person's choices and judgments, can influence decision making at various points during patient care provision. These biases can potentially result in misdiagnoses, delayed clinical care, and/or patient mismanagement. A range of interventions exists to mitigate cognitive biases.

A Systematic Review of Interventions to Reduce the Effects of Cognitive Biases in the Decision-Making of Audiologists.

Background: Audiologists are constantly making decisions that are key to optimizing client/patient outcomes, and these decisions may be vulnerable to cognitive biases.

Purpose: The purpose was to determine the present state of knowledge within the field of audiology regarding the potential impact of cognitive biases on clinical decision-making and the use of interventions to reduce such impact.

Research Design: A systematic review was conducted to identify and consider the outcomes of all studies in which an intervention, strategy, or procedure was implemented with the aim of reducing the impact of cognitive biases on the decision-making of audiologists.

A Comparison of Electrical Stimulation Levels Across Ears for Children With Sequential Bilateral Cochlear Implants.

Objectives: To compare threshold and comfortable levels between a first and second cochlear implant (CI) for children, and to consider if the degree of difference between CIs was related to the age at bilateral implantation or the time between implants. A secondary objective was to examine the changes in levels over time for each CI.

Design: Fifty-seven participants were selected from the 146 children and young adults who received a first Nucleus CI as a child, and received a second implant at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital between September 2003 and December 2011.

Benefits of upgrading to the Nucleus 6 sound processor for a wider clinical population.

Objectives: To determine whether a large clinical group of cochlear implant (CI) recipients demonstrated a difference in sentence recognition in noise when using their pre-upgrade sound processor compared to when using the Nucleus 6 processor, and to examine the impact of the following factors: implant type, sound processor type, age, or onset of hearing loss.

Methods: A file review of 154 CI recipients (aged 7-92 years old) who requested an upgrade to the Nucleus 6 sound processor at the Cochlear Care Centre Melbourne was conducted. 105 recipients had complete data collected according to the protocol.

Social Development in Children With Early Cochlear Implants: Normative Comparisons and Predictive Factors, Including Bilateral Implantation.

Objectives: There are mixed results regarding psychosocial development in children with cochlear implants (CIs) compared with children with normal hearing (NH), and the effect of bilateral CIs has not yet been investigated. This study aimed to investigate whether social development differed between NH children and those with early CIs, and to identify new predictors of psychosocial development in children with early CIs.

Design: The psychosocial development, cognitive and language abilities of 159 children were measured as part of a longitudinal outcomes study of children with CIs.

Investigation of Electrical Stimulation Levels Over 8 to 10 Years Postimplantation for a Large Cohort of Adults Using Cochlear Implants.

Objectives: This study examined electrical stimulation levels over 8 to 10 years postimplantation in adult Nucleus implant users. The first aim was to investigate long-term trends and amount of change in electrical stimulation levels for each of four electrode array segments. The second aim was to determine long-term trends and amount of change for particular participants who previously showed greater change (i.

Speech Detection in Noise for Young Bilaterally Implanted Children: Is There Evidence of Binaural Benefit Over the Shadowed Ear Alone?

Objectives: To measure binaural benefit over the shadowed ear alone for young bilateral cochlear implant (CI) users. It was hypothesized that children who received bilateral CIs at a young age (<4 years), and had significant bilateral experience, would demonstrate lower detection thresholds for speech sounds in background noise in the bilateral CI over the unilateral CI condition when the added CI was ipsilateral to the noise source.

Design: Children receiving bilateral CIs at the Eye and Ear Hospital Clinic in Melbourne were invited to participate in a wider research project evaluating outcomes; those participating in the wider project who were bilaterally implanted by 4 years and were approximately 2 years postoperative were included in the present study.

The Change in Electrical Stimulation Levels During 24 Months Postimplantation for a Large Cohort of Adults Using the Nucleus® Cochlear Implant.

Objectives: To examine electrical stimulation data over 24 months postimplantation in adult implant users. The first aim was to calculate mean T and C levels for seven time points, for four cochlear segments, and two array types. The second aim was to (a) analyze the degree of change in each of the T and C levels as a function of dynamic range for six consecutive time point comparisons, for the four segments, and (b) to determine the proportion of participants with an acceptable degree of change.

Everyday Listening Performance of Children Before and After Receiving a Second Cochlear Implant: Results Using the Parent Version of the Speech, Spatial, and Qualities of Hearing Scale.

Objectives: To evaluate change in individual children's performance in general areas of everyday listening following sequential bilateral implantation, and to identify the specific types of listening scenarios in which performance change occurred. The first hypothesis was that parent performance ratings for their child would be higher in the bilateral versus unilateral implant condition for each section of the speech, spatial and qualities of hearing scale for parents, viz.: speech perception, spatial hearing, and qualities of hearing.

Longer-term functional outcomes and everyday listening performance for young children through to young adults using bilateral implants.

Objectives: First, to document a broad range of functional outcomes of bilateral implantation for young children through young adults at a postoperative point at which stable outcomes could be expected. Second, to evaluate the relationship between functional outcomes and age at bilateral implantation and time between implants.

Design: A study-specific questionnaire was administered to parents in an interview 3.

Measuring listening effort expended by adolescents and young adults with unilateral or bilateral cochlear implants or normal hearing.

Objectives: To compare the listening effort expended by adolescents and young adults using implants versus their peers with normal hearing when these two groups are achieving similar speech perception scores. The study also aimed to compare listening effort expended by adolescents and young adults with bilateral cochlear implants when using two implants versus one.

Methods: Eight participants with bilateral cochlear implants and eight with normal hearing aged 10-22 years were included.

Adaptation of the speech, spatial, and qualities of hearing scale for use with children, parents, and teachers.

Subjective assessment of hearing ability in everyday life complements more objective forms of evaluation. A broad evaluation of the additional benefit provided to children by a second bilateral cochlear implant required such an assessment. As no paediatric tool provided detailed evaluation of performance in the areas of daily listening in which benefit was likely to be demonstrated, an adult questionnaire was adapted.