Veterans' Hearing Aid Use and Follow-up Care Outcomes from Electronic Health Records

Data from 284,175 US Veterans Administration patients with a hearing aid order, including a subset of 43,568 with International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) data, was analyzed to assess associations between follow-up care and long-term hearing aid use. The dataset, authored by Gabrielle H. Saunders and last updated in April 2026, contains variables for demographic, audiometric, and health-related covariates. Analysis used regression modeling with dependent variables for short-term (IOI-HA) and long-term (24-month persistence) hearing aid outcomes.

Use Cases

• Modeling long-term hearing aid use persistence based on short-term follow-up care data.
• Predicting patient adherence using International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) questionnaire responses.
• Analyzing associations between demographic, audiometric, and health-related covariates and hearing aid outcomes.

Strengths

• Includes data from 284,175 patient records from the US Veterans Administration system.
• Contains a validated subset of 43,568 records with International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids (IOI-HA) data.
• Analysis identifies specific IOI-HA questions (1, 2, 4, 7) more strongly associated with 24-month outcomes.

Limitations

• Row count for the underlying data tables is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The 317.9 KB file size suggests a limited scope, likely containing summary or analysis documents rather than the full raw dataset.

Provenance

Source

US Veterans Administration (VA) Electronic Health Record system.

Collection Method

Data were analysed using regression modelling.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-22 09:18:37; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United States (Veterans Administration system).