Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) – Hearing Aid Research Lab (HARL)

What is it?

The APHAB is a 24-item self-assessment inventory in which patients report the amount of trouble they are having with communication or noises in various everyday situations. Benefit is calculated by comparing the patient’s reported difficulty in the unaided condition with their amount of difficulty when using amplification. The APHAB produces scores for 4 subscales: Ease of Communication (EC), Reverberation (RV), Background Noise (BN), and Aversiveness (AV)

To administer and interpret the APHAB, you will need the APHAB questionnaire and a method for scoring the questionnaire results.

How do I get it?

You can download and print a copy of the APHAB questionnaire and the instructions for manual scoring from this website. APHAB scoring software for Windows is also available for free download on this page. The APHAB software provides a way for patients or hearing aid professionals to enter responses directly into an electronic record that can be saved for future use. Responses are scored automatically and can easily be compared to norms.

Obtaining the APHAB Questionnaires

The APHAB Questionnaires are in PDF format and can be viewed, printed, and saved to your computer using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader program.

The downloadable translations of the APHAB inventory are versions of Form A. We are grateful to Phonak Hearing Systems for providing some of the translations. Other translations have been provided by persons who were fluent in both English and the target language. Translation guidelines were provided. However, we cannot guarantee that translated items have not been modified from the original. New translations are added as they become available to us. In posting these translations of our website, our goal is to provide a “standard” translation for a language that clinicians and researchers in each country can use, examine, and perhaps improve. At present, there is evidence that multiple translations have been made in some languages and this is clearly not an optimal situation.

Please not that the instructions accompanying these translations are an abbreviated version of the full instructions. For standard administration, the full instructions should be provided, either verbally or in writing. The full instructions are:

“INSTRUCTIONS: Please circle the answers that come closest to your everyday experience. Notice that each includes a percentage. You can use this to help you decide on your answer. For example, if a statement is true about 75% of the time circle “C” for that item. If you have not experienced the situation we describe, try to think of a similar situation that you have been in and respond for that situation. If you have no idea, leave that item blank.”

Obtaining the instructions for manual scoring:

A three page document is available to use in scoring the APHAB manually. The first two pages list the items contributing to each subscale for Form A and Form B of the questionnaire. The third page contains the instructions for scoring each item and calculating scores. This document file is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

Obtaining the APHAB Automatic Scoring Software:

The APHAB software Windows version is available from the AUSP Software Group as a zip file for free download on this page (at right).

References

Johnson, J, Cox, RM, and Alexander, GC. “APHAB norms for WDRC hearing aids.” Ear and Heariang, 31(1): 47-55 (2010).

Cox, RM. “Administration and application of the APHAB.” Hearing Journal, 50(4): 32-48 (1997).

Cox, RM. “The Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) – Administration and Application”, Phonak Focus No. 21, 1996.

Paul, RG (Feature Editor) and Cox RM. “Measuring hearing aid benefit with the APHAB: Is this as good as it gets?” Amer. J. Aud., 4(3), 10-13 (1995).

Cox, RM and Alexander, GC. “The Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB”. Ear and Hearing, 16, 176-186 (1995).

Cox, RM., and Alexander, GC. “Maturation of Hearing Aid Benefit: Objective and Subjective Measurements”. Ear and Hearing, 13, 131-141 (1992).

Cox, RM., and Rivera, IM. “Predictability and Reliability of Hearing Aid Benefit Measured Using the APHAB”. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 3, 242-254 (1992).

Cox, RM., Gilmore, CG., and Alexander., GC. “Comparison of Two Questionnaires for Patient-Assessed Hearing Aid Benefit”. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 2, 134-145 (1991).

Cox, RM and Gilmore, C. “Development of the Profile of Hearing Aid Performance (PHAP)”. J. Speech and Hearing Res., 33, 343-357 (1990).

APHAB Questionnaires

English (Form A)

English (Form A – Revised)