Bilateral Bone-anchored Hearing Aid: impact on quality of life measured with the Glasgow Benefit Inventory

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether the fitting of bilateral Bone-anchored Hearing Aid (BAHA) would result in any additional improvement in patients' quality of life (QOL) over and above what we would experience from the fitting of a single-sided BAHA. STUDY DESIGN Retrospective, anonymized, cross-sectional postal survey using the Glasgow Benefit Inventory (GBI). SETTING Tertiary referral center. PATIENTS All 93 adult patients who had been using bilateral BAHA for more than 6 months. INTERVENTION(S) Hearing rehabilitation using bilateral BAHA. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) These include the GBI benefit scores across the following domains: "overall benefit," "general health benefit," "physical health benefit," and "social benefit." Comparison of GBI scores against other otological interventions including single-sided BAHA. RESULTS Response rate was 76%. Ninety-two percent of patients reported improvement in QOL. Positive QOL improvement scores were reported across all domains. Overall GBI benefit score was +ve 38. This is higher than the benefit scores reported by patients with single-sided BAHA, although this may not be statistically significant. CONCLUSION After fitting the second BAHA, patients may report additional improvement in their QOL (of a smaller magnitude) over and above the initial improvement in their QOL after fitting of their first BAHA. In fact, the overall benefit score for bilateral BAHA seem to be close to that for cochlear implantation.