The use of qualitative questionnaires in patients having and being considered for cochlear implants

TLDR

The study used open‑ended questionnaires to investigate the specific hearing complaints of candidates for cochlear implantation and the benefits and shortcomings reported by implanted patients. Participants completed qualitative questionnaires that captured acoustical, psychological, and practical aspects of hearing, allowing the researchers to categorize reported benefits and shortcomings. Most respondents reported difficulty hearing general conversation, with 45 % of complaints falling into a psychosocial category that exceeded those of typical audiological rehabilitation patients, and they listed more benefits—such as improved environmental sound awareness, easier conversation, and increased self‑confidence—than shortcomings, which mainly involved noisy‑background hearing difficulty and a cumbersome processor.

Abstract

Within this study we have examined the particular hearing complaints of patients being considered for a cochlear implant and the specific benefits/shortcomings experienced by implanted patients using open-ended questionnaires. As we expected, the difficulty of hearing general conversation was the most common individual hearing complaint. However, 45% of complaints were concentrated in the ‘psychosocial’ category, which was significantly higher than that found among general audiological rehabilitation patients. The average number of benefits listed by patients having implants was significantly higher than that of the shortcomings. Moreover, the main benefits listed were focused on the acoustical and psychological factors, e.g. ‘environmental sound awareness’, ‘general conversation easier’ and ‘feeling of self-confidence’. The main shortcomings were related to the acoustical and practical areas, e.g. hearing difficulty in noisy background, processor being cumbersome.