Users’ Complaints in Sound Effect of Hearing Aids and Its Relationship with Hearing Aid Dissatisfaction

• Main Authors: CHIU-FEN CHEN, 陳秋芬
• Other Authors: Hsiao-Chuan Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/65539151406665457119

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 聽力學與語言治療研究所 === 94 === Users’ Complaints in Sound Effect of Hearing Aids and Its Relationship with Hearing Aid Dissatisfaction Chiu-Fen Chen Abstract The purposes of this study were to investigate the descriptors that were used by domestic hearing aid users regarding the sound effect of hearing aids, the most frequent complaint, the consistency between users’ response in two scales of opposite way of description, and the relationship between frequencies of users’ complaints in sound effect of hearing aids and users’ scores in the hearing aid dissatisfaction scale. Subjects were 64 hearing impaired people who had wore hearing aids for more than 3 months but less than 5 years. The scales and questionnaires used in the study included “the hearing aid satisfaction inventory”, “the hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory”, and “the questionnaire of complaints in sound effect of hearing aid”. Results were as follows: 1. There were 42 questions in the questionnaire of complaints in sound effect of hearing aids. Descriptors with the top ten of the highest occurrence were : “can’t hear well in the noisy environment”, “makes whistling sound”, “the background noise is too loud”, “the loud sound is too loud”, “the sound is very noisy”, “can’t hear well”, “the surrounding environment sound is too loud”, “sounds like coming from a speaker”, “tone doesn’t change at all”, “sounds like coming out of a microphone”, “there is noise in the hearing aids”. 2. The hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory had good internal consistency, reliability and validity. 3. The average scores of “the hearing aid satisfaction inventory” and “the hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory” were 61.16 and 50.38, respectively. The subscales that had the highest scores in these two scales were after-sale service (70.24) and the price of hearing aids (50.36), respectively. It revealed that subjects were most satisfied with after-sale service and were least satisfied with the price of hearing aids. 4. The single-item satisfaction scores (70.42) was significantly correlated with scores of “the hearing aid satisfaction inventory” (61.16) (r=0.732, p<.01). However, significant difference was observed in between (t=5.188, p< .01). The single-item dissatisfaction scores (46.95) was significantly correlated with scores of “the hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory” (50.38) (r=0.494, p<.01). There was no significant difference observed between them (t=-1.068, p>.05). Whether the single-item score could be used to predict the scores of an inventory depended upon the inventory. It could not be used in predicting satisfaction score, because overestimate would occur. But it could be applied in dissatisfaction score. 5. Subjects’ dissatisfaction with hearing aids shown in two oppositely described scales revealed that the consistent response were between 24.5% and 57.1%, which was not high. To disclose user’s satisfaction and dissatisfaction with hearing aids, a scale with direct description, instead of conjecturing the answers by reversing their responses, must be adopted. 6. Subjects’ scores in “the questionnaire of complaints in sound effect of hearing aid” were significantly correlated both with their scores in single-item dissatisfaction scale and in “the hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory”. The correlation coefficients were 0.450 (p＜.01) and 0.281 (p<.05), respectively. Subjects’ scores in “the questionnaire of complaints in sound effect of hearing aid” could predict 20.2% and 7.9% of variance in scores of single-item dissatisfaction scale and “the hearing aid dissatisfaction inventory”, respectively. Key words: complaint in sound effect of hearing aid , hearing aid satisfaction , hearing aid dissatisfaction.