LM324 - What Parents Want From Their Audiologist: Opportunities to Support Parent Health Literacy

Abstract::
Parents and caregivers rely on their audiologist for support and to help develop their understanding of their child’s hearing loss. According to recent research, parent’s needs vary, are complex, and reach beyond their child’s hearing technology. Within the framework of Self-Determination Theory, and based upon recent interview research, this presentation will discuss the topics and resources families value as being most important and the type of support their audiologist can provide.

Summary:
Parent health literacy is described as the ability of a parent to obtain, process, and understand, information provided to them by their healthcare professional and feel they can make decisions based upon that information. Health literacy is important for parents and caregivers as they represent a unique and important group where they are responsible for the health and well-being of their children. When parent’s health literacy knowledge and understanding of their children’s health issues is not sufficient, the quality of care may be compromised. Parents of deaf and hard-of-hearing children spend a lot of time with their clinical audiologist. The quality of an audiologist’s communication skills has a direct impact on parent’s understanding of their child’s hearing loss and adherence to recommendations for the use of hearing technology. Historically, informational counseling in pediatric audiology has been situated in a clinical context where the audiologist explained diagnostic tests and represented the outcomes of those tests on the audiogram. Recent research has suggested that the audiogram may not be meaningful for parents as a tool to support understanding of hearing loss. A qualitative study using interview research was completed with twenty parents of children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Parents were asked to reflect upon their experience with their audiologist and the informational counseling that was provided. In addition, they were asked what additional supports and resources they required to understand their child’s hearing loss and hearing technology. Findings from this study will be shared with conference participants.