Determinants of Cochlear Implant Satisfaction and Decisional Regret in Adult Cochlear Implant Users

Determine associations expected and actual cochlear implant (CI) outcomes, decisional regret, and satisfaction in experienced adult CI users.

Cross-sectional cohort study.

Tertiary medical center.

Thirty-nine adult CI users meeting traditional bilateral hearing loss indications with ≥12 months CI experience.

Patients completed the validated Satisfaction with Amplification in Daily Living and Decisional Regret instruments. Pre- and post-CI outcomes (CI Quality of Life [CIQOL]-Expectations; CIQOL-35 Profile; CNC words, AzBio Sentences) were obtained from a prospectively maintained clinical database.

Using established cutoff scores, 29% of patients reported a substantial degree of post-CI decisional regret. For each CIQOL domain, patients without decisional regret obtained post-CI outcome scores closer to pre-CI expectations compared with patients with decisional regret ( d = 0.34 to 0.91); similar results were observed with higher CI user satisfaction ( d = 0.17-0.83). Notably, the degree of pre- to post-CI improvement in CNC or AzBio scores did not differ between patients with and without decisional regret or with lower and higher satisfaction. Finally, greater pre-/postimprovement in CIQOL-35 Profile domain scores demonstrated far stronger associations with lower decisional regret and higher satisfaction than changes in speech recognition scores.

Patients with better alignment of their pre-CI expectations and post-CI outcomes and greater pre-/post-CIQOL improvement had lower decisional regret and higher satisfaction. This emphasizes the importance of evidence-based pre-CI counseling regarding real-world CI benefits and caution against assuming that improvements in speech recognition are related to patient satisfaction.