Development of a Visual Faces Scale for Adults with Hearing Loss: The Facial Scale of Hearing Difficulty

In busy clinics, audiologists can benefit from brief, patient-centered tools to identify those with hearing difficulties. Pure-tone and speech audiometry measures, as well as self-report measures, require time and significant patient engagement. Visual analog scales have been used in health care as an accessible and simple way to understand patients' multifaceted experiences....

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Consider evaluating the Facial Scale of Hearing Difficulty as a quick screening tool in busy clinic settings, particularly for patients who may struggle with traditional written questionnaires; however, await broader validation studies before replacing established tools.

A validated visual screening tool for hearing difficulty could improve patient identification and accessibility in high-volume or linguistically diverse audiology settings.

1. 01A new visual scale using face images was developed to screen hearing difficulty in adults — modeled on pain-rating face scales.
2. 02Designed for rapid use in busy clinical environments where long questionnaires are impractical.
3. 03Developed and validated in a clinical population of adults with hearing loss.
4. 04Patient-centered design aims to improve accessibility for low-literacy or non-English-speaking patients.
5. 05Published in JAAA; validation scope and psychometric details to be confirmed from full paper.

PMID

42403961

DOI

10.3766/jaaa.250043.

Journal

Journal of the American Academy of Audiology

Publication type

research_article

Evidence level

4

Population

Adults with hearing loss in clinical settings

Intervention

Facial Scale of Hearing Difficulty (visual faces-based self-report tool)