Perceived social support improves health-related quality of life in cochlear implant patients

Perceived social support has been shown to positively correlate with health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in a variety of conditions. This study investigated whether perceived social support is affecting HR-QoL of patients who receive a cochlear implant (CI) for deafness.

Eighty eight adults (56 males, 32 females; mean age: 60 years) with a uni- or bilateral CI for bilateral high-grade hearing loss were administered two questionnaires: a questionnaire for perceived social support (FSU-14) and the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (NCIQ) for hearing-specific HR-QoL. Administration of the questionnaires occurred at four points in time: before implantation and three, 12 and 24 months after implant activation.

The CI patients had quite high levels of perceived social support (mean percentile rank: 71), which remained stable at all four measurement points. Multivariate Analysis showed a significant interaction between perceived social support and HR-QoL indicating that higher perceived social support lead to higher improvement of HR-QoL after cochlear implantation.

The CI patients in this study had higher than average levels of perceived social support, which did not change before and after cochlear implantation. Perceived social support and HR-QoL were related such that patients with high levels of perceived social support experienced greater improvement of their HR-QoL after cochlear implantation than patients with low levels of perceived social support. Based on this finding, perceived social support must be considered as an important factor for HR-QoL after cochlear implantation.