Reasons for attending annual hearing aid review appointments
Reviewed by Joanna Lemanska

The aim of this study was to investigate what factors influence hearing aid users’ decision to attend or not attend an annual hearing aid review (HAR) appointment. Two separate surveys were created for attendees and non-attendees. An invitation letter was sent to hearing aid users and the number of hearing aid users that attended a HAR was checked. The attendees and non-attendees were sent a reminder letter and the relevant survey set. Forty percent of participants that were sent the initial invitation attended the HAR appointment, whereas 60% did not. The study concluded that the decision to attend the HAR appointment depends on how the importance of the HAR appointment is perceived by a participant, whether the whole hearing aid fitting pathway is fully funded by a participant and what the hearing aid outcome was. It was also suggested that HAR appointment attendance may be improved by enhancing the clinical practice with better explanation about the importance of the HAR appointment. It is worth noting that the response rate was below 18 % and, considering the fact that most of the participants who returned the survey attended the HAR appointment, the information about why participants did not attend the appointment might be limited.

Hearing aid review appointment: clients’ reasons for attendance and non-attendance.
Bennett RJ, Zhang M, Mulders WHAM, et al.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AUDIOLOGY
2020;59(2):101-8.