Skip to main content
AAO-HNSF 2023 Annual Meeting & OTO Experience Main banner
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.

Otology/Neurotology

Preactivation CIQOL-35 as a Predictive Tool for Cochlear Implant Expectations

Tuesday, October 3, 2023
4:51 PM - 4:57 PM East Coast USA Time
Location: 104BC

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Celeste S. Kim, MD

    Resident Physician
    Emory University School of Medicine
    Atlanta, GA, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • Kaitlyn A. Brooks, MD

    Resident Physician
    Emory University School of Medicine
    Atlanta, GA, United States

    • Senior Author(s)

  • Esther X. Vivas, MD

    Professor and Division Chief
    Emory University School of Medicine
    Atlanta , GA, United States

Disclosure(s):
Celeste S. Kim, MD: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Introduction: Pre-operative patient counseling on cochlear implant (CI) expectations is innately important. The new Cochlear Implant Quality of Life-35 (CIQOL-35) questionnaire may be an effective tool for this purpose. Our objective was to determine if post-activation quality of life (QOL) can be predicted from pre-activation QOL.

Methods: This study is a single institution retrospective cohort that included adult patients who underwent unilateral CI and completed both pre- and post-activation CIQOL-35 surveys. For patients with multiple post-activation CIQOL-35 surveys, the earliest survey was analyzed. Primary outcomes included pre- and post-activation QOL scores and change in QOL. Change in QOL was calculated by subtracting pre-activation scores from post-activation scores. Linear regression was used to analyze the relationship between the sets of QOL scores. Significance was set at p=0.05.

Results: Twenty-four patients (13 M, 11 F) were included with a median age of 65 years (20 – 87 years). Twenty-three (96%) patients experienced improvement in communication (median Δ +12), entertainment (median Δ +6), and global (median Δ +10.5) domain scores. Twenty-two (92%) patients improved in the environmental domain (median Δ +7), 21 (88%) patients improved in the listening effort domain (median Δ +4.5), and 20 (83%) of patients improved in the social (median Δ +5) and emotional (median Δ +3) domains. Higher pre-activation QOL scores predicted higher post-activation QOL scores for communication (β=0.45, p< 0.05, 95% CI 0.01 - 0.9), emotional (β=0.5, p< 0.01, 95% CI 0.15 - 0.83), listening effort (β=0.61, p=0.02, 95% CI 0.10 - 1.11), and global domain scores (β=0.55, p=0.01, 95% CI 0.13 - 0.98). Median follow-up time was 13.8 months (7 – 25 months).

Conclusions: Patients undergoing CI should expect improvement in their QOL from their baseline. Higher pre-activation QOL scores using the CIQOL-35 predicted attainment of higher QOL scores in the post-CI period across multiple domains, thus indicating a relationship which may be useful during pre-operative counseling.