The effect of type of hearing loss on hearing aid use

This study examined the effect of type of loss and reduced PB discrimination on hours of daily hearing aid wear. Patient data were entered in one of four matrices designed to permit examination of one variable while balancing the effects of other variables. When the influences of amount of hearing loss, age, hearing aid experience, and employment status were balanced, no evidence was found that type or shape of loss influenced the number of hours of daily hearing aid use. When the data for each type/shape of loss were pooled without regard to amount of loss, age, aid experience, and employment status, hours of reported wear were least for those with normal hearing in the better ear (8 hours) and most for those with conductive components (15.8 hours). Since patients with conductive components had the largest hearing losses, it was concluded that hours of wear are influenced primarily by amount, not type of loss. Discrimination scores were examined within the same balanced design. Although PB max scores for patients with conductive components were systematically higher than scores for patients with sensorineural losses, the reported wear times were essentially the same. Previous findings that sensorineural hearing loss and reduced speech discrimination adversely influenced hearing aid wear were attributed to differences in amount of loss and other intervening psycho-socio-vocational variables.