ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: Perceived social support has been shown to positively correlate with health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) in a variety of conditions. This study investigated whether perceived social support is affecting HR-QoL of patients who receive a cochlear implant (CI) for deafness. METHODS: Eighty eight adults (56 males, 32 females; mean age: 60 years) with a uni- or bilateral CI for bilateral high-grade hearing loss were administered two questionnaires: a questionnaire for perceived social support (FSU-14) and the Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (NCIQ) for hearing-specific HR-QoL. Administration of the questionnaires occurred at four points in time: before implantation and three, 12 and 24 months after implant activation. RESULTS: The CI patients had quite high levels of perceived social support (mean percentile rank: 71), which remained stable at all four measurement points. Multivariate Analysis showed a significant interaction between perceived social support and HR-QoL indicating that higher perceived social support lead to higher improvement of HR-QoL after cochlear implantation. CONCLUSION: The CI patients in this study had higher than average levels of perceived social support, which did not change before and after cochlear implantation. Perceived social support and HR-QoL were related such that patients with high levels of perceived social support experienced greater improvement of their HR-QoL after cochlear implantation than patients with low levels of perceived social support. Based on this finding, perceived social support must be considered as an important factor for HR-QoL after cochlear implantation.
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The Nijmegen Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (NCIQ) is a questionnaire for assessing hearing-specific quality of life in the context of cochlear implantation. Its length (60 items) makes it difficult to use in clinical practice, so a short version is desirable. The question arises as to which items should be selected for the short version. METHODS: The items were selected statistically using uncorrected item-total score correlation. Item selection was made based on datasets from three measurement points: before implantation and 3 and 12 months after processor activation. The items were selected according to the criterion that they were among the 40 items with the highest item-total score correlation at each of the three measurement points. RESULTS: Of the 60 items in the NCIQ, 25 met the criterion and were hence included in the short version. The short version yields similar scores as the long version at the postoperative timepoints; however, at the preoperative timepoint, the agreement of the scores is suboptimal. Split-half reliability and internal homogeneity of the short version are very good. CONCLUSION: The present study constitutes an initial positive evaluation of a short form of the NCIQ in terms of standard psychometric criteria. Application of the short form is associated with significantly reduced resources in terms of processing and evaluating.