Person-centric practice within a hearing wellbeing programme
Reviewed by Nathan Barlow

This Australian team describe their development process of a hearing wellbeing programme beginning in August 2020, with a wide variety of stakeholders being involved. Primarily, they report, they aimed to overcome the challenge of providing engaging social and emotional support tools to their communities. Patterns were identified from data collated from literature reviews, two expert presentations, interviews with seven people with lived experiences and three hearing care providers (HCP), as well as the lived experience of the design team. The article reports 17 insight statements being apparent from their collation, which influenced their design. Primarily, the identification of HCPs being unable to be the primary source hearing, understanding and validating patients psychosocial needs, stands out on initial pass over. Laird et al provide profound quotations which give insight into the heart of the matter for the people with lived experiences, and they came up with five themes. A prototype service was designed, being an umbrella concept which covered the five identified themes. This resulted in a hearing wellbeing programme; a set of online self-guided and self-paced modules covering acceptance, anxiety, confidence, grief, identity, loneliness, mood, relationships, respectful communication and stigma – all relating to hearing conditions. They also describe a telehealth consultation to begin that journey with an HCP. Soundfair (the charity reporting on this initiative) reports they have received a grant to create a digital version of this programme which aims to improve accessibility and reduces costs for the end user. They plan to undertake a feasibility study and a randomised control trial to assess the efficiency of their intervention. This sounds like an interesting use of telehealth design. Additionally, it has a person-centric design principle underpinning the process to address psychosocial barriers for those with hearing difficulties, whilst not only reducing the emotional burdens on HCPs but also upskilling professionals with a supported resource that helps signpost people with hearing concerns towards achieving healthier living with their hearing challenges.

Using Human-Centered Co-Design to Develop a Hearing Wellbeing Program.
Laird E, Barr C, Bryant C, Vitkovic J.
HEAR J
2024;77(11):4–6.