Some considerations in the use of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly and its derivatives as hearing-aid outcome measures.

Objective: To evaluate use of the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE), and its derivatives, as hearing-aid outcome measures.

Design: A targeted narrative literature review identified 12 studies in the primary research literature that had reported mean HHIE scores for both unaided and aided conditions. Individual unaided and aided HHIE scores from several recently completed randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of hearing aids were also analysed. The focus of these analyses was on: (1) the dependence of HHIE benefit scores on the unaided baseline HHIE scores; and (2) establishing minimally detectable differences (MDDs) and minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) for the use of HHIE-based scores as hearing-aid outcome measures.

Study Sample: Mean data from the research literature ( = 1,439 older adults) and individual data from large recently completed RCT datasets ( = 584 to 1,067 older adults) were included for analyses.

Results: The literature and datasets showed that hearing-aid benefit measured with HHIE-based tools depends on the baseline HHIE score. For example, for unaided HHIE scores of 20 vs 60, MDDs were 4 vs 13, respectively, and MCIDs were 7 vs 20, respectively.

Conclusion: Baseline-specific MDDs and MCIDs should be used to establish significant benefit using HHIE-based outcome measures.