Assessment of Quality of Life in Egyptian Children after Cochlear Implant

Abstract

Introduction: Cochlear implantation (CI) is gradually growing in Arabic countries and there have only been a few studies about the quality of life (QL) of pediatric patients in this area. Objective: To investigate various aspects of QL in CI pediatric patients using a Parents’ Perspective Questionnaire and to evaluate the significance of such aspects. Patients and Methods: This was a prospective cohort study carried out on a 71 CI pediatric patients. Their age ranged from 4–18 years. Parents were asked to answer the Parents’ Perspective Questionnaire. This questionnaire was designed with 11 subscales and 58 questions in total. All questions were scaled from 1 to 5: (1 strongly agree; 2 agree; 3 neither agree nor disagree; 4 disagree; and 5 strongly disagree). Results: Children implanted at age ≥ 4 year, had better score regarding positive effect of implant, communication, self-confidence and services of implant centers. Similar significant better scores were observed with advance of age of the children. However, younger implanted children had better score regarding communication. Conclusion: CI has positive effect on the quality of life. Patients’ satisfaction is correlated with age of implantation and duration of the implant use.