A new PROM of perceived listening effort in hearing loss

Groups related to this event

Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science

Event date

Thursday, 9 February 2017

Sarah Hughes, South Wales Cochlear Implant Programme, UK.

Title

Enhancing the validity of the conceptual framework for a new PROM of perceived listening effort in hearing loss.

Abstract

Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are standardised, validated questionnaires that are completed by patients to measure their perceptions of their own general health status or aspects of a specific health condition. They are used routinely at local and national levels to inform individual care and, increasingly, for audit purposes and to measure the performance of healthcare providers.

Commensurate with this expanding interest in patient-reported outcomes (PROs) there has been rapid growth in the development of new PRO instruments. The process of constructing a new PROM is well established and includes the development of a conceptual framework that describes the constructs the PROM proposes to measure. The underlying conceptual framework is essential to ensuring a PROM’s content validity. However, research has shown that the concept elicitation and framework development often lacks rigour. Many validation studies fail to report on content validity with negative consequences for the measure and the individual receiving care.

This presentation will explore how mixed methods were used to enhance the validity of the conceptual framework for a new PROM of perceived listening effort in hearing loss. Listening in degraded acoustic conditions, either in background noise or with a hearing loss, is known to be effortful. The effort experienced is assumed to be the result of the increased cognitive load needed to understand an auditory message and the individual’s motivation to listen. As yet, a clinically useful measure of listening effort is not available.

The results of a systematic review examining the quality of existing PROMs that have been used in the study of listening effort to date will be presented followed by details of a new conceptual framework developed from the patient perspective using a sequential exploratory mixed methods design. Lastly, the protocol for a second systematic review will be presented that was designed to identify and appraise the quality of PROMs measuring concepts identified from participant accounts.

The new conceptual framework of perceived listening effort will be discussed in relation to: 1) emerging theoretical models in the literature and 2) the challenges of measuring listening effort as a latent construct knowable only to the individual.

Speaker profile

Sarah Hughes, B.Sc., M.Sc., MRCSLT is a practicing speech-language pathologist at the South Wales Cochlear Implant Programme in the UK.

She is a PhD Candidate at Swansea University Medical School, Swansea University and a visiting scholar and honorary member of the Department of Linguistics (Audiology Section), Macquarie University. Sarah’s doctoral research focuses on the measurement of listening effort in hearing loss. She is developing a new patient reported outcome measure (PROM) of perceived listening effort for use the cochlear implant clinic. She is particularly interested in the contribution of social and psychological factors to the subjective experience of listening effort.

In 2015 Sarah was recognised by Royal College Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) for her work to promote research engagement within the speech and language therapy profession in Wales. Currently, she is Therapies Representative of the Joint Study Review Committee at Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board and a member of the British Society of Audiology’s Adult Rehabilitation Interest Group (ARIG) steering committee. Sarah is a member of the working group for the Research Priorities Project, a collaboration between the RCSLT and the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR).

Seminar information

Date: 9th February 2017

Time: 12 - 1pm

Venue: Seminar room, Level 1, 75 Talavera Road, Macquarie University

Chair: Professor Frances Rapport, Centre for Healthcare Resilience and Implementation Science, AIHI