A survey of the attitudes of practitioners toward teleaudiology

Abstract Objective: To survey hearing healthcare practitioners' (1) attitudes toward teleaudiology appointments, (2) willingness to conduct different clinical tasks via teleaudiology, and (3) willingness to conduct a teleaudiology appointment with different patient populations.

All participants were asked to complete the Attitudes toward Teleaudiology Scale for Practitioners (ATS-P), a 46-item online survey designed for this study.

The responses from 202 hearing healthcare practitioners working in Canada were collected. The sample consisted of 152 audiologists, 49 hearing instrument specialists, and one who did not specify a category.

The majority of respondents indicated that teleaudiology is likely to have a minimal effect on the quality of hearing healthcare in audiology and the quality of client-practitioner interactions, although many respondents indicated that teleaudiology would have a positive effect on accessibility to service. Nevertheless, a small minority of respondents indicated that teleaudiology would have a negative impact on quality of care in audiology.

Willingness to use teleaudiology depended on a combination of the clinical tasks to be performed and the patient populations to be served. These findings can help guide the successful implementation of teleaudiology services.