Measures for the assessment of hearing aid provision and rehabilitation.

To determine the effectiveness of the provision of a hearing aid, some measure of benefit is desirable. Direct determination of benefit is difficult, not least due to the problems inherent in defining what benefit actually is. An alternative approach is to assess aspects of hearing aid use of performance that relate to benefit. Hours of daily use, satisfaction and self-rated performance are measures that might be expected to relate to benefit. The studies reported in this paper examine the relevance and repeatability of these measures. It is concluded that this three-parameter approach provides a simple, relevant and useful way of assessing benefit from amplification which has application in both individual and group studies.