JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Listening programs enable hearing aid users to change device settings for specific listening situations and thereby personalize their listening experience. However, investigations into real-world use of such listening programs to support clinical decisions and evaluate the success of hearing aid treatment are lacking.

Objective:

To investigate the distribution of provided listening programs among a large group of in-market hearing aid users and the context by which the programs are typically used.

Methods:

First, we analyzed how many and which programs were provided to 32,336 in-market hearing aid users. Second, we explored 396,723 program selections from 1,312 selected users to investigate the sound environments in which specific programs are used and whether such environments reflect the listening intent conveyed by the name of the used program. Our analysis is based on real-world longitudinal data logged by smartphone-connected hearing aids.

Results:

57% of hearing aid users in our sample had programs for specific listening situations, which is a higher proportion than previously reported, most likely due to the inclusion criteria. Based on association rule mining, we identified a primary additional listening program, “Speech in Noise”, usually provided when also getting other programs. We also identified two secondary additional programs (“Comfort”, “Music”), usually provided to users that also have “Speech in Noise”. Two programs (“TV”, “Remote Mic”) were instead related to the use of external accessories and not associated with other programs. On average users selected “Speech in Noise”, “Comfort” and “Music” in louder, noisier, and less modulated (all P<.001) environments compared with the environment in which they selected the default “General". The difference from the sound environment in which they selected “General” was significantly higher in the minutes following program selection compared to the minutes preceding it.

Conclusions:

This study provides a deeper insight into the provision of listening programs on a large scale and demonstrates that additional listening programs are used as intended and according to the sound environment conveyed by the program name.