What does it meant to live well with hearing loss? Different things are of course important to different people. Ida tries to find out what individual patients value with our Living Well tool. But now, a new study in the UK has begun laying the groundwork to evaluate what self-management processes could support the idea of living well.
A Delphi review conducted by Fiona Barker of the University of Surrey, Kevin J Munro of the University of Manchester, and Simon de Lusignan of the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre asked stakeholders what processes were necessary for a person with hearing loss to live well. Stakeholders included clinicians, researchers, and people with hearing loss. The article, “Supporting living well with hearing loss: A Delphi review of self-management support,” was published in the International Journal of Audiology in March.
“We chose a Delphi review because this is an established way to seek opinion and gauge consensus amongst a varied group of stakeholders,” says Fiona, who answered a few questions for Ida via email. “It was particularly appealing because it does not involve face-to-face meetings or focus groups where certain stakeholders may feel at a disadvantage. We felt that the participants with hearing loss would have completely equivalent access to the process.”
Fiona and her co-authors are looking at behavior change and trying to encourage long term hearing aid use. A review of the literature has shown that a patient’s self-management is key to this.
“Self-management support processes have been defined as those processes that help someone live the best possible life under the circumstances,” she says. “In this study, we hoped to find out a bit about what living well might mean in the context of hearing loss and what audiology/health system behaviors might support living well.”
Some of the behaviors the panel agreed on included, “You have accepted your hearing loss and are psychologically comfortable with it,” “Health services should measure social outcomes,” and that clinicians should “find out what the person with hearing loss’ expectations are for rehab.”
“An important finding for my research is that stakeholders do support the use of both informing and involving processes in hearing healthcare,” says Fiona. “I am working to develop an intervention to encourage audiologists and people with hearing loss to collaborate to develop behavioral plans for hearing aid use. Just like the evidence suggests that patients are more likely to change their behavior if they agree with or have been involved in planning the change, there is also evidence that professionals who have to implement new processes are more likely to engage with the new behavior if they agree with or have been involved in planning the change.”
While working collaboratively to plan change could lead to better outcomes, Fiona sees other gaps to fill to effectively measure what it means to live well.
“More work could investigate whether there are differences in what living well looks like from the perspective of someone with a hearing loss versus professionals,” she says. “There is also more work needed to further develop behavioral specifications for informing and involving processes in audiology that support someone to live well.”
But how does Fiona personally define living well?
“I like the definition that it is ‘living the best possible life under the circumstances,’” she says. “This does not imply a return to ‘normality’ (whatever that means!) or ‘pre-condition function.’ It implies some level of acceptance of the ‘circumstances’ but that you are able to adapt to them to live life as well as you can.”
Fiona previously participated in Ida’s Living Well Seminar. You can read the full article on Informa Healthcare.