A word elicitation study including the development of scales characterizing aided listening experience

The purpose of the present study was to identify the terms hearing aid professionals and their patients use in the communication about the aided listening experience and develop scales that would help characterize this experience in the domain of corrective actions that a hearing care professional may apply. The study comprised a word elicitation study based on observations and interviews from 18 examinations, involving 7 audiologists, 2 medical audiologists, and 15 adult patients from the audiological department at Aalborg University Hospital. The words patients and professionals used for describing the aided listening experience were itemized, noted on cards, and analyzed by developing an affinity diagram. The resulting 80 words were then sorted by three hearing professionals in a supervised card sorting session, leaving 65 attributes (grouped in 13 main categories) that was considered suitable for suggesting corrective actions. These 65 attributes were included in a 63-point scale design, which (in a usability test including 8 hearing aid users) were considered easy to survey and use, but also including some redundancy and ambiguities. The results suggest that it is possible to develop scales based on the voluntary statements expressed during actual consultations, but that the expressions may not be interpreted the same way by other patients and professionals.