Development and initial validation of the 'Clinical Global Impression' to measure outcomes for audiological rehabilitation.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop and validate an interview instrument for assessing outcome following hearing aid fitting based on clinical global impressions. The Audiological Rehabilitation Clinical Global Impression (AR-CGI) was developed and used in a telephone interview in two separate samples. The first sample (N=69) consisted of hearing aid owners who had participated in two intervention studies, and the second sample consisted of hearing aid owners receiving regular services from a hearing clinic (N=21). Following the semi-structured telephone interview, participants were categorised into three categories: successful, successful with some limitations or unsuccessful. A vast majority were categorised as successful (80% of the intervention sample and 71% of the clinical sample). Those categorised as successful were found to differ from those categorised as less successful in terms of age and self-reported hearing aid use, depressed mood and residual participation restriction, but they did not differ in terms of degree of hearing loss. It is suggested that the brevity and usefulness of the AR-CGI makes it a potential tool for further use in audiological settings.