Development of the Three-Clinic Hearing Aid Selection Profile (HASP)

The Three-Clinic Hearing Aid Selection Profile (HASP) was developed to assess a patient's beliefs about a number of basic considerations felt to be critical to the hearing aid selection (HAS) process. These characteristics are felt to be key to the acceptance of amplification and include motivation, expectations, cost of goods and services, appearance (cosmesis), attitudes about technology, physical function/limitations, communication needs, and lifestyle. The results of the first investigation suggest that we have been successful in developing a 40-item metric with adequate internal consistency reliability that assesses the aforementioned characteristics. Second, results of the administration of this tool to a large group of individuals indicated that (1) age impacted scores on the Technology, Physical Function, and Communicative Needs subscales; (2) gender impacted scores on the Motivation, Expectation, Technology, Communicative Needs, and Appearance subscales; (3) previous hearing aid use affected scores on the Motivation subscale; (4) level of education impacted scores on the Physical Function and Lifestyle subscales; and (5) self-perceived hearing handicap had an effect on Motivation and Communicative Needs subscale scores. Percentile data collected from this subject sample are presented as a benchmark against which to evaluate responses from individual patients. Case studies are presented to illustrate the potential clinical utility of this device.