Self Report Working Group

The International Outcomes Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) was developed as a result of a meeting in Elsinore sponsored by the Oticon Foundation. The aim was to devise a short set of items that would capture key aspects of the known important dimensions of hearing aid use, hearing aid performance, satisfaction, residual disability and handicap and overall quality of life. The result was a seven-item scale, published in the inaugural edition of the International Journal of Audiology (Cox et al., 2001). There have been several studies using the IOI-HA in various clinical settings, and the scale has been translated into many languages. (Copies of scale in a variety of languages are available under the "Products" menu on the left.) Most of the initial group involved in the scale's development are ICRA Fellows, and ICRA has taken on the role of "clearing house" for project ideas, potential collaborations, new translations, and data-base identifier.

One planned application of the IOI is in various countries and communities in South-East Asia. Service providers in that world region are concerned to find out if these are effective, especially wanting to know what might be learned about improving various current services through comparison of IOI-HA outcomes in relation to the features of the different services. The aim will be to enlist the help of various key players in different countries and areas, via networks radiating from a hub in Hong Kong. The first steps will be to determine what further languages the inventory needs to be translated into, to draw up a list of key partners throughout the region, who will take on the task of arranging contact with service providers, and finally to determine optimum ways of distributing the IOI to clients, getting their responses, and logging and returning the data, including details of each service from which data are being derived.

Members of the ICRA self-report working group are pulling together information on the use of the International Outcome Inventory for interested parties world wide. The idea is that those interested in outcomes using this measure could access information about relevant studies and then contact the owners of the data if they wish to find out more about the study. Information about studies from studies in at least seven countries (USA, Netherlands, England, Scotland, Wales, Australia, Germany, Denmark) is currently available. Those who wish to contribute can complete the IOI DATA DICTIONARY and send the dictionary entry to l.hickson@uq.edu.au. The information will then be posted on this site.

The submissions received to date may be seen on the "Self Report" page under the "Working Groups" menu item on the left.