Remote Hearing Aid Fitting in Adults: a systematic review (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Deafness is a disability affecting 430 million people worldwide. Hearing aids are one of the most common ways to deal with this disability. Once delivered, hearing aids must be adjusted by an audiologist. Until now, this adjustment was done face-to-face, which can be a problem in area with limited access to healthcare, audiology centers, for people with mobility problems or, more recently, during coronavirus pandemic. In the era of pandemic teleaudiology gained in popularity. OBJECTIVE The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the effectiveness of remote hearing aids fitting procedures in adults. METHODS A systematic review was conducted in agreement with the PRISMA 2020 statement, across 4 databases (Cochrane, PubMed, Science Direct and Web of Science), with the following search string: (hearing aid) AND (eHealth OR remote OR teleaudiology OR telehealth OR telemedicine) AND (fitting OR programming) NOT (children OR babies OR infants OR implant). RESULTS After completing all stages of a systematic review, our search retrieved 8 articles for full analysis: 4 interventional controlled studies, 2 case studies and 2 systematic reviews. Several issues, such as time of consultation, patient satisfaction, quality of care or hearing results were investigated and showed no significant differences between face-to-face and remote hearing aids fitting CONCLUSIONS This systematic review showed strong evidences to support the use of remote hearing aids fitting, as a standard of care particularly for remote and underserved locations, patients with reduced mobility or in situations of pandemic lockdown.