Assessment of a Hearing Aid Training Program fHealth Care Workers

Marissa Merrifield, Karen A. Doherty

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to develop and evaluate aperson hearing aid training program designed for health care workers and sonal care aides (PCAs) who care for older adults. Method: Participants were 18 health care workers and PCAs whose cliwere older adults. This was a randomized controlled study in which half oparticipants were assigned to the experimental group (n = 9) and the otheto a control group (n = 9). The experimental group was administered a heaid training program that was developed in this study for health care woand PCAs. Participants in the control group were trained on a task simicomplexity and administration time to the hearing aid training program. Practical Hearing Aid Skills Test–Revised Version 2 (PHAST-Rv2) was admitered before and immediately after training. A 2 × 2 mixed analysis of var(ANOVA) was used to compare the pre-and post-training scores between within the experimental and control groups. Descriptive statistics were used examine the differences between pre-and post-training scores on each of administered PHAST-Rv2 tasks. In addition, participants were asked about texperience helping clients with their hearing aids. Results: Mean pre-and post-training PHAST-Rv2 scores for the experimengroup were 59.50% and 95.84%, respectively, and 57.66% and 59.96respectively, for the control group. Results from a 2 × 2 mixed ANOVA with point (pre-and post-training) as the within-subject variable and group (expmental and control) as the between-subject variable demonstrated that hearaid training significantly improved PHAST-Rv2 scores for the experimengroup. Post-training, the tasks that the experimental group improved on most were brushing the microphone port, cleaning the dome, placing the hing aids in the charger, and inserting the hearing aid into the model eademographic variables were significantly correlated with the participanimprovement on the PHAST-Rv2 post-training score. Conclusion: A hearing aid training program designed specifically for health workers was shown to be an efficient and effective way to improve how health care workers can care for and operate a hearing aid.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1281-1290
Number of pages10
JournalAmerican journal of audiology
Volume33
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2024

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Speech and Hearing

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