Survey on Utilisation and Satisfaction of Hearing Devices under Central Government Schemes on Parents of Children with Hearing Impairment

Abstract

About 63 million individuals i.e., 6.3% population in India are having significant degree of hearing loss. Out of these 63 million populations, the prevalence of the adult-onset and childhood-onset hearing loss were found to be 7.6% and 2% respectively. The early identification and intervention of the hearing impairment is very crucial for the acquisition of the speech and language development. Most often, these individuals belonging from low socioeconomic status are having difficulty in procuring the hearing device and further deprived to enrol in the mainstream. Therefore, the government granted funding for the hearing aid and cochlear implant for those individuals who are financially poor to procure the same. Hence, the assistance to disabled persons for purchase/fitting of aids/appliances (ADIP) provide financial assistance for the purchase of hearing aids and cochlear implants whereas client welfare fund (CWF) provides financial assistance in purchasing hearing aid only for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families. The present survey study aimed to find out the utilisation and satisfaction of hearing device from the parent of children who purchase hearing aid as well as cochlear implant under central government schemes and client welfare fund. Sixty parents of hearing-impaired children who got either a hearing aid and/or cochlear implant through a government-funded programme participated in the survey. Thirty participants (12 male & 18 female) were parents of children who had procured a cochlear implant as part of a government-funded programme i.e., ADIP. The remaining 30 (15 males & 15 females) were parents of hearing-impaired children who received hearing aids through the CWF scheme of AIISH. The utility questionnaire and satisfaction of amplification in daily life were administered to the parents of children using hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. The Fisher exact test showed children using cochlear implant had more significant utilisation in auditory awareness of sound, auditory discrimination skill, listening in background noise and auditory memory and sequencing in comparison to the children using hearing aids. Whereas no significant difference observed for identification skill, localisation skill, distance and directional skill. Similarly, children with cochlear implant had significant correlation in satisfaction among positive effect, negative feature, service and cost. Whereas personal image showed no significant difference between children using cochlear implant and hearing aids. It is evident from the study that children using cochlear implant has more utilisation than the children using hearing aids. The parent satisfaction is reported to be more for cochlear implanted children than hearing aid children. Hence, study concluded that the fund provided by the central government for cochlear implant had effective utilisation and showed positive effect in providing the resource development of children with hearing impairment.