A study of reliability and response patterns in self-administered audiometry for adult first-time hearing-aid users

The potential benefits of out-of-clinic diagnostics are manifold: It may be used to alleviate clinically trained personnel where resources are scarce, it may reduce the need for travel and it allows for increased privacy and discretion for the potentially hearing impaired, who may see a self-administered hearing test as the first step toward accepting the need for a hearing aid. Many smartphone applications for hearing diagnostics are currently available. However, as reported e.g. by De Wet Swanepoel (2014) the dependency of a specific tablet or smartphone platform, such as iPhone, may cause inconvenient limitations.