Comparison of two questionnaires for patient-assessed hearing aid benefit

Two questionnaires, the Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (PHAB) and the intelligibility Rating Improvement Scale (IRIS), were developed to measure self-assessed hearing aid benefit. The response format differed in the two instruments: the PHAB required estimation of the proportion of time that certain situations presented communication problems, whereas the IRIS required estimation of the percentage of speech that could be understood in the same situations. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the potential of each questionnaire for clinical and research applications. They were compared in terms of the amount of self-assessed benefit they produced and their sensitivity to benefit differences in different listening situations. Both questionnaires were completed by 42 hearing aid wearers. Analyses of the results indicated that (1) the PHAB produced a significantly lower overall estimate of hearing aid benefit than the IRIS; (2) the PHAB was more sensitive than the IRIS to benefit differences in different listening situations; and (3) the pattern of self-assessed benefit determined with the PHAB was in agreement with previous investigations, whereas the pattern derived from the IRIS scores was not.