Describing and valuing health with single-sided deafness
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Describing and valuing health states related to asymmetric hearing resulting from a single-sided deafness (SSD)
IRAS ID
143810
Contact name
Pádraig Kitterick
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust
Research summary
Single-sided deafness (SSD) refers to a severe-to-profound hearing loss in one ear and normal hearing in the other ear. In the UK, about 7500 people acquire an SSD annually. Individuals with SSD report significant difficulties with listening in many everyday situations and can struggle to communicate, potentially leading to social isolation and frustration.
Individuals with SSD can use hearing-assistive devices to help aid their listening abilities. Most available devices simply re-route sounds from the deaf ear to the hearing ear. Newer devices aim to restore hearing to the deaf ear but are currently unavailable on the NHS.
When considering which devices to provide, the NHS must weigh up their cost against the benefits they provide to a patient’s health. As different areas of healthcare compete for a limited pool of resources, benefit is increasingly being measured as a change in health so that benefits can be compared across different services. Health is usually measured on a 0-to-1 scale where 1 represents perfect health and 0 represents death. Currently, data on the impact of SSD on a patient’s health are largely unavailable, as is information on the benefits that hearing-assistive devices for SSD may have on health.
This study aims to provide data on the impact of SSD on health and what benefits to health hearing-assistive devices provide. The study will first create evidence-based descriptions of health states related to SSD and the use of hearing-assistive devices through a consultation process with both patients and clinicians. Informants (clinicians, patients and members of the general public) will then be asked to value the various health state descriptions on the 0-to-1 scale using established methods. The results of this study will help inform how new devices for SSD are evaluated and will assist the NHS to allocate resources cost-effectively.
REC name
South West - Central Bristol Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/SW/1065
Date of REC Opinion
28 Aug 2014
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion