Browsing by Subject "audiologinen kuntoutus"

Objective. Hearing loss is one of the most common chronic health problems, and the number is increasing as a result of population aging. Hearing aids are regarded as the main rehabilitation method for hearing loss. The goal of this follow-up study was to review the experiences of working aged new hearing aid adopters. The focus was to map out the expectations and satisfaction towards the hearing aid, and the disability experiences caused by hearing loss. This thesis is a part of Minna Laakso, Eila Lonka, Johanna Ruusuvuori and Tarja Aaltonen's research project "Communication with Hearing Aid". Also the data was collected as a part of the project. Methods. The population consisted of 42 working age hearing aid first time users (37 64 years). 16 of them were women. Before the hearing aid fitting the participants filled up two self-assessment questionnaires: Denver Scale and Expectations towards hearing aids. Two to three weeks after implementation of the hearing aid the participants filled up the second Denver Scale questionnaire and also IOI-HA questionnaire. Thus it was possible to compare the expectations, disability experiences and satisfaction. The research also studied the construct of Denver scale by using statistical principal component analysis. The model was then utilized in the other statistical analyses. Three participants were also interviewed. Half-structured interviews provided more detailed information about the experiences towards the hearing aid and the hearing loss. The contents of the interviews were then compared to the questionnaire data. Results and conclusions. The expectations towards the hearing aid were high in the study population, although there wasn t any correlation between expectations and short-range satisfaction. Changes in the disability as the result of hearing aid intervention weren t statistically significant. Principal components of the Denver Scale didn't follow the model introduced in previous studies. The contents of the interviews were moderately consistent with the questionnaire data. In this research it was noticed, that the high disabilities due to hearing loss can also be seen after the hearing aid intervention.