[How to Support People with Hearing Impairment beyond Hearing aid Provision - A Systematic Review on Self-Management Interventions].

Abstract

Objective: People with hearing handicap have to use a whole range of strategies to cope with everyday challenges - they have to self-manage their hearing impairment. While the support of self-management is well established in foreign language audiological rehabilitation programs, there are no recommendations in Germany yet. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is first to give an overview of existing self-management interventions for people with hearing handicap and then to suggest possible applications in the German care system.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted on PubMed. The articles dealt with self-management interventions for people with hearing impairment. This eligibility criterion was applied to titles, abstracts, and full texts. If eligible, information on the publication, intervention, and evaluation were extracted and qualitatively summarized. The methodological quality of studies was investigated using the NIH assessment tool for interventional studies.

Results: 23 papers could be included and show a high heterogeneity regarding methodological quality, applied intervention, and design of evaluation. The interventions pursuing various goals include a wide range of content (e. g., communication improvement or psychosocial aspects) and have been implemented on a group-based, individual-based, or self-administered level. Despite a few studies that failed to demonstrate intervention effects, most evaluations found positive ef-fects of the intervention on hearing impairment, psychological well-being, and communication.

Discussion: The included studies present a high heterogeneity with regard to methodological quality, the intervention conducted, and the evaluation design. Therefore, a summary of the findings was only possible in a qualitative manner. Possibilities of adapting existing intervention programs as well as chances and limits of an implementation in the German health care system are to be discussed in the following.

Conclusion: Overall, interventions including self-management support seem to be a profitable complement to sole technical device supply and should be further fostered in German-speaking countries as well.