User-operated audiometry–an evaluation of expert vs. non-expert headphone placement

Objective: User-operated audiometry faces multiple barriers. One of these is the concern of audiologists that patients (non-experts) placing headphones by themselves results in invalid hearing thresholds due to greater placement variability. Design: Comparative study. Participants took the AMTAS pure-tone air-conduction audiometry under two different conditions, expert and non-expert circumaural headphone placement for five frequencies within the range 250–8000 Hz. Questionnaires were also used to gain insight into the usability of the user-operated audiometry system–as well as the participants’ perceived handling of the audiometry headphones. Study sample: Thirty participants (mean age 67.5 years). Results: No statistically significant mean differences in hearing thresholds between the expert and non-expert conditions were found. The mean system usability scale score was 84.5. Handling the headphones was also rated as being easy (30%) or very easy (60%) by most non-experts. Conclusion: The conclusion of the study is that non-experts can be trusted to properly equip a pair of circumaural audiometry headphones for the correct conduction of pure-tone audiometry with only a few digital instructions.