Assessing Quality of Life in Bilateral Cochlear Implants

Abstract

Objective: 1) Validate a newly developed Comprehensive Cochlear Implant Questionnaire (CCIQ) as a tool for assessing changes in quality of life after receiving a second cochlear implant (CI) in the contralateral ear. 2) Correlate speech perception changes after the second CI with quality of life. Method: CCIQ is a 28-item, 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire that assesses physical and psychosocial benefits of CI. This was administered to patients who received bilateral CI at our center. Test-retest reliability and Cronbach’s alpha were used to validate the CCIQ. Speech perception was tested using CNC, HINT, and AZBio. Results: We identified 103 adult bilateral CI patients from 2004 to 2011. Of 58 respondents, 21 completed a retest CCIQ. Test-retest reliability was satisfactory, with 60% of items greater than 0.6. Coefficients for 6 of the 9 subdomains exceeded 0.6. Data suggest that internal consistency was acceptable (>0.7) for domains speech perception in quiet and noise, localization, and music, and good (>0.80) for subdomain vestibular effects. Descriptive statistics for speech perception on CNC were 62.4 ± 22.5% and 70.5 ± 18.4% using one versus bilateral CI, respectively. HINT scores were 68.0 ± 36.8% and 83.7 ± 15.4%, and AZBio 63.5 ± 34.6% and 91.6 ± 8.6%. Conclusion: Early CCIQ data indicate this as a promising measure in assessing quality of life specific to bilateral CI patients. Overall, patients reported improved quality of life. Quantitative data on speech perception demonstrate increased trend in audiometric scores after the second CI. However, further testing is needed to strengthen these findings.