Health Utilities of Assistive Devices in Children With Bilateral Severe-to-Profound Hearing Loss in an Asian Population

Hypothesis: This study aimed to measure the health utilities of bilateral severe to profound hearing impairment in children using different assistive devices. Background: Hearing-impaired children receiving early cochlear implantation demonstrate gains in speech development. Health utilities represent an individual’s preferences for particular health-related outcomes, and the values can be used in cost-utility analysis (CUA). Methods: This is a cross-sectional study using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and time trade-off (TTO) to measure health utility values. Utility values were elicited based on patients’ own health state, including bilateral hearing aids (HA/HA), bimodal hearing (HA/CI), and bilateral cochlear implants (CI/CI). ANOVA, followed by Fisher’s least significant difference (LSD) post hoc test, was used to find the difference in utility values. Linear regression analysis was used to evaluate the association of patients’ characteristics with the derived utility values. Results: A total of 134 patients (55 HA/HA, 47 HA/CI, and 32 CI/CI) completed the interviews and were included in the analysis. The mean VAS-elicited utility values were 0.66 for HA/HA, 0.74 for HA/CI, and 0.76 for CI/CI. The mean TTO-elicited values were 0.75, 0.84, and 0.86, respectively ( p =0.016 in VAS; p =0.002 in TTO). Conclusion: In this study, the utility values obtained by the VAS and TTO methods demonstrated an increase from HA/HA to HA/CI to CI/CI. The health utility values obtained will serve as essential data for future CUA research and health technology assessment.