Identifying the needs of elderly, hearing-impaired persons: the importance and utility of hearing aid attributes
Identifying the needs of elderly, hearing-impaired persons: the importance and utility of hearing aid attributes
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DOI：
10.1007/s00405-002-0495-5
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发表时间：
2002-11-01
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Walger, M
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Meister, H;Lausberg, I;Walger, M
助听器使用者中的大多数是老年患者。年长的、听力受损的受试者的需求并未完全确定。本研究旨在确定助听器基本属性的重要性，并引出相关假想助听器对老年患者的效用。这是通过基于问卷的联合分析实现的，这是一种分解的偏好测量方法，提供了现实的研究设计。随机抽取了200名经验丰富的助听器使用者参与了这项研究。虽然六个被检查的属性中有三个揭示了与年龄相关的依赖关系，但唯一显著的影响被发现是“处理”属性，这对年长的助听器用户比年轻的助听器用户要重要得多。在70岁以上的受试者中，观察到在噪音中语音清晰度的重要性降低，而在安静中语音的重要性增加的趋势。总的来说，各种假想的助听器对年长和年轻的受试者的效用是相似的。除了“处理”属性外，年龄较大的受试者和较年轻的受试者在助听器功能方面也有类似的需求。根据所检查的属性，不需要专门为老年助听器用户设计的助听器，只要考虑到人体工程学特征并使现代技术的好处完全可用于老年患者。
Older patients represent the majority of hearing-aid users. The needs of elderly, hearing-impaired subjects are not entirely identified. The present study aims to determine the importance of fundamental hearing-aid attributes and to elicit the utility of associated hypothetical hearing aids for older patients. This was achieved using a questionnaire-based conjoint analysis-a decompositional approach to preference measurement offering a realistic study design. A random sample of 200 experienced hearing-aid users participated in the study. Though three out of the six examined attributes revealed age-related dependencies, the only significant effect was found for the attribute "handling", which was considerably more important for older than younger hearing-aid users. A trend of decreasing importance of speech intelligibility in noise and increasing significance of speech in quiet was observed for subjects older than 70 years. In general, the utility of various hypothetical hearing aids was similar for older and younger subjects. Apart from the attribute "handling", older and younger subjects have comparable needs regarding hearing-aid features. On the basis of the examined attributes, there is no requirement for hearing aids designed specifically for elderly hearing-aid users, provided that ergonomic features are considered and the benefits of modem technology are made fully available for older patients.