Insights into Information-Seeking Behavior in Hearing-Loss Treatment

While hearing loss can be measured and corrected using a variety of treatment options, not all affected patients seek treatment. As such, it is imperative to learn what leads to different attitudes and behaviors towards seeking hearing loss treatments or information about them. Specifically, it is important to identify what factors distinguish between those individuals who engage in information-seeking behavior towards hearing loss treatment and those who do not. This can provide insight on how to change an individual's behavior and adapt treatment options to best promote treatments to those who need them. This study examines the data from 73 patients that classify themselves as either expressing information-seeking behavior towards hearing loss treatments or not. The goal of this study was to predict information-seeking behavior and identify the most important factors contributing to the observed behavior. The data consists of audiogram results plus the patients' responses to a series of surveys that measure their perceived hearing ability and quality of life. Machine learning models were developed to stratify the subjects to the corresponding cohorts and the factors were ranked in the order of their importance to predicting information-seeking behavior. The models achieved an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.7233 +- (0.2218), suggesting that our models were quite successful in correctly stratifying the patient's behaviors. Interestingly, the most important factor contributing to information-seeking behavior was the patient's subjective perception of their hearing loss, followed by age and the patient's objective ability to hear.