Do Hearing Aids Help in Real-Life Work-Related Situations?

Background and Aim: Information processing in challenging sound environments can affect the work-related performance of people with hearing impairment, and restoring hearing effectively can be critical for productivity and social well-being at the workplace. The study aims to understand various work-related environments to which hearing aid(HA) users were exposed, communication needs, and communication and user-related improvements after HA use.
Method: The data regarding the type of work, working hours, work-related sound environments, and HA effectiveness at work was collected using a non-standardized questionnaire.
Results: A total of 485 HA users reported that they were part of the workforce and had answered work-related questions, out of which we had valid data for 416 HA users. Themean working hours per week for the study population was 33 hours. Participants predominantly worked in health care and nursing (13%), administrative, business, and management jobs (13%), the building and construction industry (9%), and professions related to education and research (9%). Fourteen percent of the participant worked in other sectors that were not listed, and 16% did not disclose their profession. The 1029 responses from 416 participants to sound environments that the participants encountered at work included working in background noise (175 responses), multi-talker situations (269 responses), communicating in a secondary language (88 responses),telephonic conversations (215 responses), dynamic sound environments (265 responses), and none of the listed (17 responses). Two hundred and eighty responded that their communication with their colleagues at work improved after the HA use, while 139 responses indicated an improvement in communication with the clients. Telephone usage improved for 98 respondents, fatigue and tiredness were reduced for 69 participants, 52 had other improvements, and fifty-two (13%) responded that there was no improvement.
Conclusion: Understanding the work-related communication needs of HA users and related improvements can help to optimally fit the HAs and counsel the users for better use of the HAs.
Acknowledgment: The data was collected as part of the 'Better hEAring Rehabilitation' (BEAR) project. Support from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Grand Solutions 5164-00011B), Oticon, GN Hearing, WS Audiology, and the other partners is sincerely acknowledged. The partial funding of the research by Interfond is also acknowledged.