Part II: Evaluation of professional functioning 107 & Shaw, 2008; Van der Hoek-Snieders et al., 2022; Van Leeuwen et al., 2021). Potentially, a greater effect on the NFR might be accomplished when there is more focus on work adjustments, such as improving room acoustics and adjusting work schedules. There is a great need for standards or guidelines describing appropriate rehabilitation services supporting employees with hearing loss. Although we believe that employees with hearing loss might benefit from a communication group-training, suggestions can be given that might improve current practices. First, we suggest to include a thorough assessment of the impact of hearing loss on work performance in the diagnosis of employees with hearing loss. The NFR scale, CPHI, and the Amsterdam Checklist for Hearing and Work might be helpful, although these instruments need to be validated in a population of employees with hearing loss (Van der Hoek-Snieders et al., 2022). Also, making accommodations in the workplace has been described to be a complex and ongoing process that requires conscious attention and effort (Shaw et al., 2013). Therefore, we suggest that employees are supported to start or continue an ongoing dialogue with their employer and colleagues about the challenges that they encounter at work and the strategies that might be helpful. A group-setting might be appropriate for this purpose. The employees in this study were encouraged to bring their significant others, but might also be specifically encouraged to bring their employer and/ or their colleagues. Also, the effect of a communication group-training might be greater if the duration is longer than 6 or 11 weeks or if a group-training is followed by individual counselling sessions. This should be investigated by future research in larger samples of employees with hearing loss. Besides the need for improving current rehabilitation services, the accessibility of multidimensional services is also under pressure. We found that only 13 employees were eligible for inclusion in a period of 15 months which shows that a communication group-training has not been common practice for employees with hearing loss at the two included centers. This might be an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, since most group-trainings were cancelled or delayed. However, in line with two earlier Dutch studies that reported that counselling services were only provided to a minority of the employees with hearing loss (Gussenhoven et al., 2017; Van der Hoek-Snieders et al., 2022), our finding might also reflect that a multidimensional approach including counselling is not commonly provided to employees with hearing loss, at least not in a group setting.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw