Maidment_The feasibility of an m health educational programme m2Hear to improve outcomes in first time hearing aid users.pdf (2.13 MB)
The feasibility of an m-health educational programme (m2Hear) to improve outcomes in first-time hearing aid users
journal contribution
posted on 2020-12-09, 14:43 authored by Melanie A. Ferguson, David MaidmentDavid Maidment, Rachel Gomez, Neil Coulson, Heather WharradObjective: To (i) assess the delivery, accessibility, usability, acceptability, and adherence, and (ii) identify suitable outcome measures, for a mobile-enhanced multimedia educational programme (m2Hear) in first-time hearing aid users.
Design: A prospective, single-centre feasibility study. Study sample: First-time hearing aid users (n=59), recruited at their initial hearing assessment. Evaluations were made at 1-week and at 10-12 weeks post-hearing aid fitting.
Results: m2Hear was most commonly accessed via tablets (34.2%). Usability was high for the System Usability Scale (88.5%), and the uMARS, particularly for the Information (M=4.7), and Functionality (M=4.5) and Aesthetics (M=4.2) subscales (maximum score=5). Participant feedback was positive, with a high percent agreeing that m2Hear aided understanding of hearing aids (98%), held their interest (86%), improved confidence to use hearing aids and communicate (84%), and provided additional information to audiologist’s advice (82%). Learnings about practical hearing aid handling/maintenance skills and how to communicate with others were reportedly used equally in participant’s everyday lives. m2Hear was convenient to use, clear, concise and comprehensive. Outcome measures of social participation resulted in large effect sizes (Cohen’s d>1.6).
Conclusions: Co-production of a theoretically driven, personalised educational mhealth intervention is feasible and beneficial for use in the self-management of hearing loss and hearing aids.
Design: A prospective, single-centre feasibility study. Study sample: First-time hearing aid users (n=59), recruited at their initial hearing assessment. Evaluations were made at 1-week and at 10-12 weeks post-hearing aid fitting.
Results: m2Hear was most commonly accessed via tablets (34.2%). Usability was high for the System Usability Scale (88.5%), and the uMARS, particularly for the Information (M=4.7), and Functionality (M=4.5) and Aesthetics (M=4.2) subscales (maximum score=5). Participant feedback was positive, with a high percent agreeing that m2Hear aided understanding of hearing aids (98%), held their interest (86%), improved confidence to use hearing aids and communicate (84%), and provided additional information to audiologist’s advice (82%). Learnings about practical hearing aid handling/maintenance skills and how to communicate with others were reportedly used equally in participant’s everyday lives. m2Hear was convenient to use, clear, concise and comprehensive. Outcome measures of social participation resulted in large effect sizes (Cohen’s d>1.6).
Conclusions: Co-production of a theoretically driven, personalised educational mhealth intervention is feasible and beneficial for use in the self-management of hearing loss and hearing aids.
Funding
NIHR under its Research for Patient 35 Benefit (RfPB) Program (Grant Reference Number PB-PG-0815-20019)
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
International Journal of AudiologyVolume
60Issue
Sup 1Pages
S30-S41Publisher
Taylor & FrancisVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Rights holder
© Crown CopyrightPublisher statement
This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Taylor & Francis under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2020-09-11Publication date
2020-11-01Copyright date
2020ISSN
1499-2027eISSN
1708-8186Publisher version
Language
- en