Investigation of audiological factors affecting hearing aid satisfaction in individuals using hearing aids

Individuals with hearing loss sometimes restrict or isolate themselves in the environment they are in because they cannot communicate comfortably in both their social and professional environments. For this reason, in order to reduce these problems, it is one of the healthiest ways to start using a hearing aid that will provide a good performance and efficiency, with appropriate gain settings that can respond to hearing loss. Real Ear Aided Gain (REAG) by making Real Ear Measurement (REM) the effect on audiological factors such as hearing thresholds, speech discrimination scores and speech reception thresholds for 6 months and later following the use of appropriate hearing aids by the patients and to investigate hearing aid use satisfaction by applying the Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life (SADL) questionnaire. As a method between the ages of 18 and 65 who had a hearing aid application in Samsun Deva Sound Hearing Aid Center; 100 individuals (45 women, 55 men) who did not have neurodegenerative disease, did not have ear surgery, and did not have abnormal ear findings participated in the study. With Real Ear Measurement (REM), the results of 30, 50, 70 and 90dB intensities of sounds at 500, 1000, 2000 and 4000Hz frequencies were recorded and statistical analyzes were made. SADL questionnaire was applied before and after REM. By adding additional questions to the SADL Questionnaire questions, VAS scores scored between 0 and 10 were calculated. The answers to the survey questions were evaluated out of 10 points, and lower scores indicate greater satisfaction. A significant (p<0.05) positive correlation was observed between the target (target curve) and the curve (device response) in the REAG results performed with the DSL V5.0 algorithm. REM A statistically significant difference was found in the change in the globalsatisfaction score with the SADL questionnaire conducted before and after (p<0.05). As aresult, if the gain settings of the hearing aid are made in accordance with the user, a positive effect will be achieved on audiological parameters such as improvement in hearing thresholds, understanding and distinguishing spoken words in quiet or noisy environments, and soundlocalization. This suggests that the user will have a positive effect on the amplification usage satisfaction.