Measuring the Effectiveness of Hearing Aids with the Revised Age-Related Hearing Loss Questionnaire

Purpose: This study investigated the validity and reliability of the revised age-related hearing loss questionnaire (R-ARHLQ) and its effectiveness for the wearing of hearing aids by comparing before and after the wearing of hearing aids.Methods: Total thirty-four seniors ranging from mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss depending on the total scores of the R-ARHLQ participated in this study. The factor analysis, construct and criterion-related validity, item reliability, internal consistency, test-retest reliability of of the R-ARHLQ, and the effectiveness of the wearing of hearing aids were analyzed by various staistically methods.Results: The contents of the R-ARHLQ was grouped into four subcategories: Communication Attitude (10 questions), Communication Difficulty (6 questions), Communication Environment (4 questions), and Communication Interruption (5 questions). The construct validity of the R-ARHLQ ranged from .389 (p <0.05) to .943 (p < 0.01). The criterion-related validity with the self-assessment for hearing screening of the elderly-revised (SHSE-R) ranged from .385 (p <0.05) to .837 (p < 0.01). The item reliability ranged from .818 to .987 (p < 0.001) while the internal consistency ranged from .849 to .922 and the test-retest reliability was .99 (p <0.001). The R-ARHLQ of three different groups (mild, moderate, and severe groups) was significantly different among before the wearing of hearing aids and two weeks and four weeks after the wearing of hearing aids.Conclusions: This suggests that the R-ARHLQ can be used as a clinically useful screening tool and a subjective diagnosis tool for the age-related hearing loss.