Identifying and prioritizing diseases important for detection in adult hearing health care

Samantha J. Kleindienst*, Sumitrajit Dhar, Donald W. Nielsen, James W. Griffith, Larry B. Lundy, Colin Driscoll, Brian Neff, Charles Beatty, David Barrs, David A. Zapalad

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research note is to identify and prioritize diseases important for detection in adult hearing health care delivery systems. Method: Through literature review and expert consultation, the authors identified 195 diseases likely to occur in adults complaining of hearing loss. Five neurotologists rated the importance of disease on 3 dimensions related to the necessity of detection prior to adult hearing aid fitting. Results: Ratings of adverse health consequences, diagnostic difficulty, and presence of nonotologic symptoms associated with these diseases resulted in the identification of 104 diseases potentially important for detection prior to adult hearing aid fitting. Conclusions: Current and evolving health care delivery systems, including direct-to-consumer sales, involve inconsistent means of disease detection vigilance prior to device fitting. The first steps in determining the safety of these different delivery methods are to identify and prioritize which diseases present the greatest risk for poor health outcomes and, thus, should be detected in hearing health care delivery systems. Here the authors have developed a novel multidimensional rating system to rank disease importance. The rankings can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of alternative detection methods and to inform public health policy. The authors are currently using this information to validate a consumer questionnaire designed to accurately identify when prefitting medical evaluations should be required for hearing aid patients.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)224-231
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican Journal of Audiology
Volume25
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2016

Funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (Grant R21 DC013115-02, awarded to Sumitrajit Dhar and David A. Zapala), the Knowles Hearing Center at Northwestern University (awarded to Sumitrajit Dhar, Donald W. Nielsen, and David A. Zapala), and by the James Russell and Martha Crawford Endowed Clinical Research Fellowship in Otolaryngology (awarded to Samantha J. Kleindienst). We thank Rachael Baiduc and Chun Chan for assistance with data collection and analysis and Greta Stamper and Dania Rishiq for their assistance in manuscript preparation. Conflicts of interest and source of funding: All authors declare there is no conflict of interest. Portions of this study were presented at the annual meeting of the American Auditory Society (2015).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Speech and Hearing

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