Downloaded from http://journals.lww.com/thehearingjournal by BhDMf5ePHKbH4TTImqenVIU9NkCnp6A3NmD9X0eNY7oGVi2Iv+ZIIoAhy6UAcZY7 on 02/21/2020 14 The Hearing Journal February 2020 FAMILY INVOLVEMENT T he involvement of family and loved ones in health care appointments can be very beneficial, including providing patients with emotional and logistical support and sharing the burden of processing infor- mation. 1-3 This may be particularly true for audiology appoint- ments since the consequences of hearing loss can be profound. For audiologists to get a more holistic view of the challenges that patients face, it is important to actively in- volve family members in appointments since hearing loss of- ten affects the entire family. Intervention plans for individuals can then be tailored to be more comprehensive, 4,5 such as addressing communication barriers within the home environ- ment for both sides of the communication pair. Audiology ap- pointments can also be overwhelming to a new patient who just received a diagnosis along with substantial amounts of new information. Unfortunately, it appears that family involvement in adult audiology services may be limited. 6 Despite awareness of its benefits, little research has been done on why this is the case. To increase the participation of family members, it is first nec- essary to understand the barriers to such participation, then educate audiology professionals on these barriers and how they can work with patients and their families to overcome them. As a first step, we conducted a survey to gain insights into patients’ perspectives on involving family members in audiol- ogy appointments. PATIENT PERSPECTIVES A survey was completed by nearly 400 patients in a university audiology clinic. 7 The survey asked questions concerning pa- tients’ desire to have a family member present at audiology appointments and how their hearing loss affects their lives and those of their loved ones. Of note, nearly 50 percent of patients brought a companion when they came to the univer- sity audiology clinic for an appointment, during which they completed the survey. However, only 39 percent of respond- ents reported that they wanted family at appointments, and more than half said that they either did not want family to at- tend or were unsure. This is a relatively large proportion of participants who reported not wanting family at appointments. One possible reason is embarrassment or the stigma sur- rounding hearing loss. The study found a relationship be- tween patients’ lack of desire to include family in appointments and negative feelings related to their hearing loss, including frequently feeling embarrassed or isolated. However, patient variables such as age, gender, duration of hearing loss, and education level did not predict whether a patient desired fam- ily at appointments. It may be helpful to understand the reasoning and feelings of those who do or don’t want family at appointments to overcome these barriers. Among those who want family at appointments, their motivations included: Family Involvement in Adult Audiology Appointments By Bailey Reynolds; Sarah E. Yoho, PhD; and Karen Muñoz, EdD Freepik/rawpixel.com From left: Ms. Reynolds is an audiology graduate student at Utah State University (USU). Her ar- eas of interest include the impact of effective counseling and family- centered care in audiol- ogy and the benefits of early identification and intervention of hearing loss in children. Dr. Yoho is the audiology division chair and an assistant professor of audiology in the department of communicative disorders and deaf education (COMDDE) at USU. Her research is focused on im- proving the speech understanding abilities of individuals with hearing loss and reducing the impact of background noise on communication for these listeners. Dr. Muñoz is the department head and a professor of audiology in the COMDDE department at USU. Her research focuses on understanding parent and professional factors that facilitate and/or in- terfere with spoken language outcomes of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Ultimately, audiologists will need to find ways to overcome the barriers to family involvement.