Quality of life and cochlear implant: results in adults with postlingual hearing loss.

INTRODUCTION: Considering the variability of results found in the clinical population using a cochlear implant, researchers in the area have been interested in the inclusion of quality of life measures to subjectively assess the benefits of the implantation.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the quality of life of adult users of cochlear implant.

METHODS: A cross-sectional and clinical study in a group of 26 adults of both genders, with mean duration of cochlear implant use of 6.6 years. The Nijmegen Cochlear Implantation Questionnaire and the generic World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire were sent electronically.

RESULTS: The best assessed domain in the quality of life assessment for the cochlear implantation questionnaire was the social domain, whereas for the quality of life questionnaire it was the psychological domain. The variables, gender, time of cochlear implant use and auditory modality did not influence the results of both questionnaires. Only the variable level of education was correlated with the environment domain of the quality of life questionnaire. The variable telephone speech comprehension was associated with a better perception of quality of life for all the domains of the specific questionnaire and for the self-assessment of quality of life in general.

CONCLUSION: From the users' perspective, both questionnaires showed that cochlear implant brought benefits to different aspects related to quality of life.