A Measure of Long-Term Hearing Aid Use Persistence Based on Battery Reordering Data.

Gabrielle H. Saunders,Oliver Zobay,Graham Naylor,Lauren K. Dillard

doi:10.1097/aud.0000000000001032

Gabrielle H. Saunders, Oliver Zobay

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1097/aud.0000000000001032

Copy DOI

Abstract

Objective:We describe the construction of a hearing aid long-term use persistence measure based on battery reorder data. The measure is derived from the notion that hearing aid users keep using their devices for some time after placing a battery order.Design:A hearing aid user is defined as persistent at time T if they placed a battery order within a time span W preceding T. We characterize and validate this measure using electronic health records from a large sample of US Veterans.Results:We describe how to choose parameters T and W for calculating persistence rates in the patient sample. For validation, the associations of persistence with: (1) the duration over which users received outpatient hearing aid care; (2) self-reported hearing aid use shortly after fitting; and (3) patient age and hearing loss are investigated. In all cases, plausible dependencies are observed.Conclusions:We conclude that our persistence measure is viable and hope this will motivate its use in similar studies.

Highlights

Data on long-term hearing aid (HA) use that are suitable for audiological research are difficult to obtain but have a considerable value for understanding behaviors
Data used in this report include standard demographic information, battery-order dates between April 2012 and December 2017, audiometric data for 570,295 patients, and International Outcome Inventory for HAs (IOI-HA) responses completed 14–180 days after HA fitting available for 146,699 patients
SENSITIVITY OF PERSISTENCE MEASURE TO PARAMETER VARIATIONS Our persistence measure depends on two defining parameters, that is, the time point T at which it is computed and on the

Summary

Introduction

Data on long-term hearing aid (HA) use that are suitable for audiological research are difficult to obtain but have a considerable value for understanding behaviors. As batteries are ordered infrequently and at irregular intervals (Saunders et al 2020), the construction of a reliable HA use persistence measure is not straightforward. This brief report describes a persistence measure that we developed to examine long-term HA use based on battery-order data, the steps undertaken to demonstrate its validity, and some considerations regarding its robustness. An understanding of the properties and limitations of this measure, which parallels methods widely used in pharmacological research to describe medication adherence (Cramer et al 2008; Saunders et al 2020), should be of interest to readers considering a similar approach

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion