Psychological change over 54 months of cochlear implant use

To determine the long-term psychological outcome of postlingually deafened adults who received multichannel cochlear implants and to relate the psychological outcome to audiological outcome.

Thirty-seven recipients of multichannel cochlear implants who participated in a prospective clinical trial completed psychological assessments before implantation and at regularly scheduled follow-ups through 54 mo of implant use. Standardized measures of affect, social function, and personality were used, and scores on these measures were correlated with asymptotic scores on several audiological measures.

Evidence of significant improvement on measures of loneliness, social anxiety, and distress were obtained within a year after implantation and throughout the duration of the follow-up period. For measures of assertiveness and marital satisfaction, improvement was apparent only after long-term implant use. Although favorable changes on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) Depression Scale were evidenced only in the initial follow-up period, improvements on the MMPI Paranoia and Social Introversion Scales persisted throughout the 54 mo follow-up.

Multichannel cochlear implant use is associated with long-term psychological benefit. Correlations between audiological outcome and psychological outcome, however, suggested that the relation between audiological benefit and psychological benefit is not simple.