Watson, J, Coleman, E, Jackson, C et al. (10 more authors) (2021) Randomised controlled feasibility trial of an active communication education programme plus hearing aid provision versus hearing aid provision alone (ACE To HEAR). BMJ Open, 11 (4). e043364. ISSN 2044-6055
Abstract
Objective To establish the acceptability and feasibility of delivering the Active Communication Education (ACE) programme to increase quality of life through improving communication and hearing aid use in the UK National Health Service.
Design Randomised controlled, open feasibility trial with embedded economic and process evaluations.
Setting Audiology departments in two hospitals in two UK cities.
Participants Twelve hearing aid users aged 18 years or over who reported moderate or less than moderate benefit from their new hearing aid.
Interventions Consenting participants (along with a significant other) were to be randomised by a remote, centralised randomisation service in groups to ACE plus treatment-as-usual (intervention group) or treatment-as-usual only (control group).
Primary outcome measures The primary outcomes were related to feasibility: recruitment, retention, treatment adherence and acceptability to participants and fidelity of treatment delivery.
Secondary outcome measures International Outcomes Inventory for Hearing Aids, Self-Assessment of Communication, EQ-5D-5L and Short-Form 36. Blinding of the participants and facilitator was not possible.
Results Twelve hearing aid users and six significant others consented to take part. Eight hearing aid users were randomised: four to the intervention group; and four to treatment-as-usual only. Four significant others participated alongside the randomised participants. Recruitment to the study was very low and centres only screened 466 hearing aid users over the 15-month recruitment period, compared with the approximately 3500 anticipated. Only one ACE group and one control group were formed. ACE could be delivered and appeared acceptable to participants. We were unable to robustly assess attrition and attendance rates due to the low sample size.
Conclusions While ACE appeared acceptable to hearing aid users and feasible to deliver, it was not feasible to identify and recruit participants struggling with their hearing aids at the 3-month posthearing aid fitting point.
Trial registration number ISRCTN28090877.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Medicine (Leeds) > Leeds Institute of Health Sciences (Leeds) > Academic Unit of Elderly Care and Rehabilitation (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Jun 2021 11:10 |
Last Modified: | 08 Jun 2021 11:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
Identification Number: | 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-043364 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:174714 |