Health-related quality of life within a cohort of hearing impaired danish adults before and after hearing aid rehabilitation

15D is a standardized, self-administered, generic questionnaire that provides a profile (D1-15 score) and a single index score (D15-score) as a measure of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) on a scale which ranges from zero to one. 15D also includes a question related to hearing (D3). When completed before and after hearing aid (HA) treatment the questionnaire can be used to assess the potential benefits of HA treatment related to HRQoL. Overall health status was collected by questionnaires (15D and a basic health-related questionnaire) before and two months after HA fitting. The study population (n=1536) comprised first time HA users (n=1096) and experienced HA users (n=440) enrolled in the BEAR project. HA resulted in improved mean score of D3 for both first time (∆D3: mean, SD (0.102; 0.19)) and experienced (∆D3: mean, SD (0.083; 0.20)) HA users after 2 months of HA use. Patients with "moderate to severe" and "severe" hearing loss, experienced a significant improvement in D3-HRQoL. The study supports that HA usage has a positive effect on HRQoL when looking at the hearing dimension. Degree of hearing loss alone does not explain the positive effect observed on D3-HRQoL. Therefore, additional parameters need to be studied in order to explain essential factors for patients with HL to be able to achieve an improvement of HRQoL following HA fitting.