NCT05083221

Effect of an Aural Rehabilitation Program in Hearing-impaired Older Adults

The Effectiveness of an Aural Rehabilitation Program on Communication Abilities, Depression, Loneliness and Quality of Life in Older Adults With Hearing Impairment

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 96 (estimated)
• Sponsor: National Taiwan University Hospital · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 65 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Hearing impairment in older adults is becoming a common health problem as the population ages. The impact of hearing impairment in older adults includes not only physical function and cognitive performance, but also depression, loneliness and social isolation, as well as having a negative impact on quality of life and financial status. Therefore, an audiological rehabilitation program intervention is recommended. The purposes of this study are to examine the effects of an audiological rehabilitation program (Hear-Talk-Activity audiological rehabilitation program) intervention on communication abilities, depression, loneliness and quality of life outcomes in older adults with hearing impairment. The single-blind, randomized control trial will include older adults aged 65 years or older with hearing impairment and aid user. Participants will be randomized to either intervention groups or control groups.

Detailed description

The study will be an experimental design featuring repeated measures, with data collected from a pretest, a posttest and a follow-up test. An estimated total of 96 participants will be randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. The experimental group will participate in a 10-week aural rehabilitation program (Hear-Talk-Activity audiological rehabilitation program), including provide information, hearing aids and assistive listening devices, communication strategies and skills, personal coping and adjustment, psychosocial support and stress management, consisting of 60-minute sessions once per week, while the control group will be put on a waiting-list group. Each group will be assessed of the outcomes at 3 time points: baseline (T0), three months following the intervention (T1) and again at six months following the intervention (T2). The investigators will use the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly-Screening version (HHIE-S), the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (10-item CES-D), the short-form University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Loneliness Scale-8 item (ULS-8) and the Short Form-12 health survey (SF-12) as the outcome indicators. The principle of intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis will be used, and the result will be analyzed mainly by generalized estimating equation (GEE).

Conditions

• Older Adults
• Hearing Impairment
• Nursing

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Hear-Talk-Activity audiological program	The participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental group or the waiting-list control group, using a computer-generated list of random numbers.

Timeline

• Start date: 2021-09-01
• Primary completion: 2023-02-28
• Completion: 2023-06-06
• First posted: 2021-10-19
• Last updated: 2021-10-19

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Taiwan