A review and analysis: Does amplification experience have an effect on preferred gain over time?

There is a widespread belief among practising audiologists that new users of hearing aids prefer lower gain levels than experienced hearing aid users and that new users will gradually come to prefer higher gain levels over time. A review of 14 papers was conducted to determine the validity of this belief and the data from three of the studies (Cox & Alexander, 1992; Horwitz & Turner, 1997; Humes et al., 2002) were then examined in closer detail. The audiometric data for 175 subjects, for whom use gain was measured at various intervals postfitting, was divided into 'new' (N = 98) and 'experienced' (N = 77) groups. For each of these subjects, the NAL-R target was calculated and the prescribed gain was compared to the use gain. An analysis of these data, along with the conclusions of the other papers reviewed here, suggests that there is no significant difference between the gain preferences of new and experienced hearing aid users, nor do the gain preferences of new users change over the first 12 months of hearing aid use.