Attitudes and Practices of Parents toward their Children Suffering from Hearing Impairment, using Hearing Aids and Challenges Facing them

Background: Hearing impairment (HI) is the commonest birth defect and it is usually difficult to be detected due to its invisible nature. It causes significant adverse effects on acquisition of speech and language, academic achievement as well as social and emotional development. Aim: to assess attitudes and practices of parents with children suffering from hearing impairment, using hearing aids and challenges facing them. Subjects and Method: Design: A descriptive study design was used. Setting: This study was conducted at the Hearing and Phonetics Outpatient Clinic at El Aeada El Shamla Tanta University Hospital. Subjects: A convenient sample of 350 parents (281 mother and 69 father) with children using hearing aid were attending the pervious setting and willing to participate in the study were included. Tool: A structured interview schedule was used to collect the needed data it included four parts Part I: Socio-demographic characteristics of parents and their children. Part 2: attitudes of parents. Part 3: Reported practical hearing aids skills of parents. Part 4: Challenges facing the parents. Results: the most of the studied parents were had negative attitudes and only less than one tenth of them were had positive attitudes toward their children suffering from hearing impairment and using hearing aids. About three quarters of the studied parents had reported in adequate practices related to hearing aids skills for their children hearing aids, while about one quarter of them had reported adequate practices. Conclusion and recommendation ; There was statistically significant positive correlation between parent attitudes regarding their hearing impairment children, attitudes regarding use of their children for hearing aids and reported practical hearing aids skills with children using hearing aids. Psychosocial rehabilitation program should be held for parents with children suffering from hearing impairment, using hearing aids to meet the needs of their children and improve their quality of life in cooperation with school health nurse.