Caregiver recall and understanding of paediatric diagnostic information and assessment feedback

Providing appropriate feedback to caregivers is an important part of the paediatric audiological assessment. This preliminary study explored caregiver recall and understanding of audiological diagnostic information subsequent to an initial paediatric diagnostic assessment.

A qualitative study was conducted at an audiology clinic at a hospital in South Africa. Data collection included observation and video-recording of assessment and feedback sessions as well as post-session semi-structured interviews with the audiologists and caregivers. Recorded sessions were analysed using sociolinguistic methods and a transcription-less approach. Interviews were analysed via content analysis.

Participants included four audiologists and five caregivers whose children had been referred for an initial audiological assessment.

Feedback sessions included explanations of the hearing mechanism, tests, audiogram, diagnosis and recommendations. Most caregivers were able to recall the final diagnosis and recommendations, but demonstrated poor recall and understanding of explanations of the audiogram and hearing mechanism.

Results highlight the importance of tailoring information towards specific caregiver needs during feedback sessions and acknowledging the goals and agenda of the caregiver. There is a need for a greater focus on information counselling in curricula and training programmes, and several suggestions are made in this regard.