Would a comprehensive hearing aid fitting process lead to placebo effects compared to a simple process?

Area of Science:

• Audiology
• Psychology

Background:

• Placebo effects influence health outcomes beyond the treatment itself.
• Understanding placebo effects in audiology is crucial for patient care.
• Personal attributes may modulate susceptibility to placebo effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if a comprehensive hearing aid fitting process induces placebo effects compared to a streamlined process.
• To determine if personality traits predict susceptibility to placebo effects in hearing aid users.

Main Methods:

• Thirty adults with hearing loss underwent two fake hearing aid fitting conditions: Comprehensive (CM) and Streamlined (ST).
• Actual hearing aid settings were used in 3-week field trials for both conditions.
• Outcomes were measured using the International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) and personality was assessed via the NEO Five-Factor Inventory.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in IOI-HA scores were found between the CM and ST conditions.
• Most participants (73%) expressed a preference for one fitting process over the other, despite identical hearing aid settings.
• Younger age and higher agreeableness were associated with a greater likelihood of having a hearing aid preference.

Conclusions:

• The comprehensive hearing aid fitting process did not yield a group-level placebo effect on outcomes.
• A majority of participants exhibited placebo effects, believing one fitting was superior.
• Individual differences in personality and age correlate with susceptibility to placebo effects in hearing aid fittings.