Abstract
Background: Hearing impairment is one of the most common sensory disabilities, affecting millions of people worldwide. The effects of a hearing impairment can impact on an individual’s life in many different ways, for instance affecting their communication skills, their social life, their academic progression and their overall quality of life. The current management of hearing impairment as indicated by the literature may be either by the use of hearing aids alone, or via hearing aids combined with an auditory rehabilitation programme. The majority of the studies that recommend a programme of auditory rehabilitation were conducted in the USA and Western Europe; none of this research investigates the hearing impaired population in Arabic-speaking countries. This study is the first in this field to be conducted in an Arabic-speaking country, specifically in Saudi Arabia, and the first to develop an auditory rehabilitation intervention programme in the Arabic language. Aims: The aims of the study were to develop an auditory rehabilitation intervention programme that focuses on adults who are new hearing aid users, to develop home training tasks for new hearing aid users who receive auditory rehabilitation programme, to investigate differences in terms of the perception of benefits from hearing aid use in the performance of new hearing aid users who receive either an auditory rehabilitation intervention programme or a standard package of care, and to investigate whether there is any interrelationship between the demographic and hearing status characteristics of those who receive an auditory rehabilitation intervention programme and their performance on home training tasks. Methods: The study involved a randomised intervention study design and included 35 Saudi Arabian participants with acquired hearing loss that ranged from mild to severe, and who were new hearing aid users (intervention group n=18, control group n=17). The outcome measures used included a speech test, the Minimal Audible Capabilities (MAC) test battery, a lip reading test and the Glasgow Hearing Aid Benefit Profile (GHABP) questionnaire. Results: The results showed that there were no significant differences in the speech test between the group who received the auditory rehabilitation intervention programme and the group who received a standard package of care. Significant changes were found in the performance of the group who received the auditory rehabilitation programme in the lip reading test and MAC test when compared with the group who received the standard package of care. The GHABP questionnaire showed statistically significant changes in certain listening situations regarding self-reported benefits from the hearing aids among participants who received the auditory rehabilitation programme when compared with the group who received the standard package of care. Conclusion: The findings from this study have added to the evidence that a short auditory rehabilitation intervention programme of two sessions, once per week for one hour, including individually focused home training tasks, can yield a significant improvement in the performance of working-age Saudi Arabian hearing impaired adults with acquired hearing loss living in Riyadh, by enhancing the benefits of hearing aid use.