Prediction of Hearing Aid Use Success in Adults with Sensorineural Hearing Loss Using Acceptable Noise Level Test and Self-Assessment Questionnaire

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Medicine, University of Tanta, Tanta, AL Gharbia, ENT department Audio vestibular medicine Unit, Tanta university hospital

2 Audiology

3 Audio-vestibular medicine department, Faculty of Medicine, Tanta University

4 Audio vestibular medicine

Abstract

Background: The acceptable noise level (ANL) measures an individual's capacity to endure the noise present while continuous speech. This work aimed to investigate whether those having tolerance to high background noise levels (BNL) low ANLs could exhibit favourable outcomes when utilizing hearing aids.
Method: This study included 50 adults, aged between eighteen and fifty years, had moderate or moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). Patients were divided into two groups: Group I (GI): included 31 subjects who were regular hearing aids users “(using the hearing aids more than 8 hours/ day).”. Group II (GII): included 19 subjects who were irregular hearing aids users “part time users”.
Results: Area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV), accuracy for unaided ANL in differentiation between aided regular, irregular conditions. Unaided ANL test had AUC P 0.825 which means that it is good in differentiation between aided regular and irregular conditions. At cut off 7.0 sensitivity was 80.0, specificity 62.5, PPV 72.7, NPV 71.4 and accuracy 72.2 and this was statistically significant.
Conclusion: ANL has the capability of accurately predicting the hearing aids' success rate. Individuals utilizing hearing aids consistently could tolerate greater amounts of background noise (BNL), as shown by low (ANLs), sporadically exhibit less tolerance to background noise, as indicated by high ANLs. ANLs as well as Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) scores give distinct and valuable data on utilizing hearing aids.

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