Identifying clients’ readiness for hearing rehabilitation within initial audiology appointments: A pilot intervention study

Objective: The current study sought to explore audiologists’ use of the Ida Institute Motivation Tools to help them identify clients’ readiness for change within initial assessment appointments. 

Design: The study involved a mixed methods intervention design. Data were collected pre- and post-training audiologists to use the Ida Motivation tools in their appointments. Appointments were video-recorded and analysed using conversation analysis. Clients and audiologists also completed questionnaires within each appointment to measure clients’ readiness-for-change. 

Study sample: Participants included 5 audiologists and 22 adult clients from two Audiology clinics. 

Results: Audiologists incorporated the Ida Motivation tools into the post-training appointments without a significant increase in appointment time. The Ida tools solicited responses from clients that displayed their ambivalence regarding hearing rehabilitation/aids within their talk. Post‐training, audiologists’ perceptions of clients’ stage of readiness were not significantly more likely to match clients’ self-reported stage on the URICA. 

Conclusions: The Ida Motivation tools may be useful to solicit clients’ ambivalent feelings towards hearing rehabilitation/aids, however, it is important for audiologists to actively listen for ambivalence within clients’ interactional responses to the tools in order judge clients’ readiness.