None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
This study will compare two ways of setting up hearing aids for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss: a standard clinic appointment and an appointment delivered remotely by video link. Remote hearing-aid care may make services easier to access, but it is not known whether it gives results as close to the person’s hearing needs as an in-clinic appointment. Each participant will try both approaches during one study visit, with the order of comparison chosen at random. The study will measure how closely each hearing-aid setting matches the person’s hearing requirements, and will ask which setting participants prefer for clarity, comfort, understanding speech, their own voice, and overall sound. The researchers expect remote fitting to perform within a clinically acceptable range of the in-clinic approach, which could support greater access to hearing care.
Interventions
Remote hearing-aid fitting with subjective verification
During one study visit, participants will receive one individual bilateral remote hearing-aid fitting, delivered by a qualified audiologist with experience in adult hearing-aid fitting, hearing-aid programming, and use of manufacturer remote-support software.
The participant will be seated in a separate room within the study clinic and connected to the audiologist via manufacturer remote-support software, including an audio-video link and a
Remote hearing-aid fitting with subjective verification During one study visit, participants will receive one individual bilateral remote hearing-aid fitting, delivered by a qualified audiologist with experience in adult hearing-aid fitting, hearing-aid programming, and use of manufacturer remote-support software. The participant will be seated in a separate room within the study clinic and connected to the audiologist via manufacturer remote-support software, including an audio-video link and a secure Bluetooth connection to the study hearing aids. The intervention is delivered individually and remotely within the clinic setting. The audiologist will programme premium receiver-in-the-canal hearing aids to 100% acclimatisation using NAL-NL2/3 prescription targets. Hearing-aid settings will then be individually fine-tuned using participant feedback regarding sound quality, loudness comfort, and speech clarity. The final settings will be saved as the remote programme. The intervention is delivered once during the study visit. The remote fitting component will take approximately 30 minutes. No participant adherence monitoring is applicable because this is a single-session clinician-delivered fitting intervention. The remote hearing-aid fitting intervention and the standard (comparator) hearing-aid fitting both occur within the same 90-minute period.
Sponsors
School of Population Health, University of Auckland
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Crossover
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Blinded (masking used) (Subject, Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Adults with bilateral mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss, with hearing thresholds stable within 10 dB over the previous 12 months; at least one year of hearing-aid experience; and sufficient English to understand consent and complete study procedures and outcome measures.
Exclusion criteria
Excluded are people with complex hearing needs, including bothersome tinnitus, single-sided deafness, or conductive hearing loss greater than 15 dB. People unable to provide informed consent or complete the fitting and outcome-measurement procedures in English will also be excluded.
Outcome results
None listed