PURPOSE: to develop an instrument to measure the expectative degree regarding the use of hearing aids for an adult/elderly patient referred at SUS; and check for its reproducibility level. METHOD: 19 patients awaiting hearing aids, provided from the Ministry of Heath, thought the Grant Hearing Aids Program of the Secretary of Health Care from the Ministry of Health were submitted to a questionnaire. The questionnaire contained 12 questions, divided in two dimensions, was applied using the strategy of test and re-test, with an interval of seven days between the first and the second application. Data were submitted to a statistical analysis in order to estimate the level of agreement using the simple Kappa coefficient. RESULTS: from a survey of patient reports, as a question, we obtained a pre-questionnaire. It has been redrafted several times, as they gave the pilot applications in group of volunteer patients, resulting in the final version. The obtained results showed a satisfactory level of agreement (>0.61) for nine questions (75%), mild (0.41 to 0.60) for two questions (16.6%) and low (0.11 to 040) to only one question (8.3%). CONCLUSION: the tested instrument has a satisfactory level reproducibility and is a good option in order to evaluate the patient's expectation level when being candidate for using the new hearing aids. This instrument can also be useful to guide the work of counseling and patient preparation in the selection and fitting process of the hearing aids.
Questionnaires; Hearing Aids; Rehabilitation of Hearing Impairment; Adult; Aged
