Part II: Evaluation of professional functioning 101 focuses on the themes empowerment, demands and capacities, the complexity of communication, hearing loss and relationships, and acceptance of the hearing loss. Table 1. Characteristics and content of the communication group-training at the two participating audiological centers (AC1 and AC2) AC1 AC2 Provided by Duration course 10,5 hours 22 hours - Working participants only No Yes - Speech reading training 45% 30% Speech therapist Instruction about hearing loss 12% 20% Audiologist Instruction about technical devices 10% 10% Audiologist Counselling on personal situations 33% 20% Social worker Counselling on work situations 0% 20% Social worker AC indicates Audiological Center. Baseline characteristics The following variables were used to describe the study characteristics at baseline: gender, age, educational level, work sector, duration of the hearing impairment, use of hearing aids, and the degree of the hearing loss. The degree of hearing loss was derived from the patient files and was described as the mean pure-tone average at 1000, 2000 and 4000 Hz, averaged across ears with a five to one weighting favoring the better ear (binaural hearing impairment, BHI). Subjective listening effort (listening effort) and auditory work demands were assessed using the Amsterdam Checklist for Hearing and Work. This checklist assesses the occurrence of six hearing-related job activities (to detect sounds, to distinguish sounds, to communicate in quiet, to communicate in noise, to localize sounds, and to be exposed to loud sounds) and the effort that these activities take. We calculated a sum score of these six questions. The listening effort score can vary between 0 and 18 and the auditory demands score can vary between 0 and 48. Higher scores represent more listening effort and/or higher auditory work demands. Outcome measures Communication strategies & personal adjustments CS and PA were assessed using the CPHI (Lidwine B. Mokkink et al., 2010). The domain CS consists of the scales maladaptive behavior, verbal coping, and non-verbal
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