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Improving communication with inpatients with hearing impairment

James Franklin, Lucy Boast and John Anderson
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.7861/clinmedicine.19-2-s17
Clin Med March 2019
James Franklin
Respiratory, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK
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Lucy Boast
Respiratory, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK
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John Anderson
Respiratory, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK
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Aims

To identify inpatients with hearing impairment and assess whether a voice amplifier (RNID Sonido Digital Listener) can improve communication with these patients.

Methods

Hearing impairment affects over 11 million people living in the UK with age-related hearing loss, affecting 71% of people over 70 years old. There is the potential for inpatients to be at risk of a sub-optimal patient experience through failure of effective verbal communication during medical ward rounds possibly leading to increased medical error.

Inpatients self-rated their hearing on a visual analogue scale (VAS) and scored how well they could hear the doctor during a ward round before and after the use of a voice amplifier. We defined hearing impairment as a score <7/10 on the VAS.

Results

Of the 22 patients, mean age 80.1 years (range 62.0–95.4), 64% were found to have a hearing impairment. Six patients took part in the intervention phase and the voice amplifier was found to improve how well the patient could hear the doctor by 5 points on average (range 2–7).

Conclusion

Hearing impairment was found to be a common problem on the respiratory medical wards at the Royal Derby Hospital and affected the quality of the patient–doctor consultation. The voice amplifier device has been shown to significantly improve the verbal communication between doctors and inpatients with hearing impairment. As a result of these findings, local funding has been granted for six more devices for ongoing data collection on a range of different wards.

Conflict of interest statement

Nil.

  • © Royal College of Physicians 2019. All rights reserved.
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Improving communication with inpatients with hearing impairment
James Franklin, Lucy Boast, John Anderson
Clinical Medicine Mar 2019, 19 (Suppl 2) 17; DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.19-2-s17

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Improving communication with inpatients with hearing impairment
James Franklin, Lucy Boast, John Anderson
Clinical Medicine Mar 2019, 19 (Suppl 2) 17; DOI: 10.7861/clinmedicine.19-2-s17
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