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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Factors that influence intent to adopt a hearing aid among older people in Italy | | Author(s) | Nicola Cobelli, Liz Gill, Fabio Cassia, Marta Ugolini |
| Journal title | Health and Social Care in the Community, vol 22, no 6, November 2014 |
| Publisher | Wiley Blackwell, November 2014 |
| Pages | pp 612-622 |
| Source | wileyonlinelibrary.com/journals/hsc |
| Keywords | Hearing Impairment ; Hearing aids ; Cross sectional surveys ; Italy. |
| Annotation | Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent health impairments associated with ageing in developed countries, and it can result in social, emotional and communication dysfunction. Hearing loss in Italy is increasing; yet, despite the availability of free hearing aids and access to qualified community-based health professionals specialising in audiology services, their uptake remains low (about 15%-20%). This paper presents an investigation of the possible reasons why older people in Italy resist adopting a hearing aid. The authors used the literature to identify factors influencing people with hearing loss's decision-making, and drew on the theory of reasoned action to create an explanatory model. They applied a cross-sectional design to test their hypotheses. They developed a questionnaire including 13 items related to adopting a hearing aid. Health professionals identified 400 people aged 60-90 who were candidates for a free hearing aid. Those willing to participate were sent a copy of the questionnaire and telephoned between August and September 2009; a total of 243 responded (response rate 60.8%). Linear regression analysis highlighted that a person's intention to adopt a hearing aid was positively related to attitude towards its adoption, but negatively linked to perceived subjective norms. It was found that trust in the health professional does not moderate the relationship between a person's attitude and the intention to adopt a hearing aid. However, trust does mitigate the relationship between the individual's perceived subjective norms and intentions. These findings underline the importance of the potential role that the healthcare professional could play in reducing the uncertainty created by external social pressures. For this purpose, stronger collaboration between the various health professionals involved in hearing aid provision, from diagnosis to fitting, is recommended. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-150619249 A |
| Classmark | BV: M8: 3KB: 76V |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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