Abstract
Purpose To evaluate satisfaction and quality of life of users of Auditory Implant Brainstem. Methods This is a cross-sectional and descriptive study conducted at Divisão de Clínica Otorrinolaringológica of Hospital das Clínicas of Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil. For the research, 19 users of an Auditory Brainstem Implant answered the following questionnaires: KINDLR (Questionnaire for Measuring Health-Related Quality of Life in Children and Adolescents), for children and adolescents, their parents and/or caregivers; WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire, for adult participants; and the Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Life (SADL) questionnaire culturally adapted to Brazilian Portuguese. Results The quality of life of children using Auditory Brainstem Implant from the perspective of their parents showed global results above average, as for most domains, except for the emotional well-being domain. Adults showed results above average for all domains. Regarding satisfaction with the device, the adult users of auditory brainstem implant were satisfied in general, except with regard to personal image. The parents of the children showed dissatisfaction in all subscales, except for the subscale of services and cost. Conclusion The results indicated that although patients are dissatisfied with the device in some aspects, overall the quality of life was rated as good for most of the aspects assessed.
Highlights
An Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI) is an electronic device indicated for use when anatomic or functional characteristics do not allow use of cochlear implant (CI) or other hearing technologies, such as fully implantable hearing aids and hearing aids for sound amplification
Some authors[3] reported that few ABI users can understand speech without the aid of lipreading, and that most of these users benefit from the detection of environmental and speech sounds, presenting lower hearing performance than that achieved by CI users
With regard to the adult ABI users who participated in the study, results indicated that they are satisfied with regard to the subscales of positive effects, negative factors and services and cost, and are dissatisfied with regard to the global score and the personal image subscale. These results revealed dissatisfaction with the feelings generated by the use of the device and the way the social environment sees the ABI, which interferes with self-image and, in particular, with personal relationships
Summary
An Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI) is an electronic device indicated for use when anatomic or functional characteristics do not allow use of cochlear implant (CI) or other hearing technologies, such as fully implantable hearing aids and hearing aids for sound amplification. This is usually the case of individuals with Neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF-2), malformation or agenesis of cochlear nerves and/or cochlea, as well as in cases of cochlea ossification following meningitis[1,2,3,4]. The authors emphasized that these results significantly improve communication and the quality of life of this population
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