Effect of COVID-19 on cochlear implant users: parental perspectives

Purpose: For ten months the world has witnessed a global pandemic “COVID-19”, which disturbed many lives either directly and/or indirectly. COVID-19 has proven challenging to the public health system and considering the hearing healthcare, an internet-based survey was conducted on how COVID-19 affected the services to Cochlear Implant users and which consecutively affected their communication needs. Methods: The study was carried out during the period of June–August 2020. The questionnaire consisted of 38 questions, developed and presented via “Google forms”. The questions were based on the common problems faced by the Cochlear Implant users. The nature of the questions was generally focused on how COVID-19 affected their child’s communication due to limited services. The questionnaire was self-administered and the time taken would be 10–15 minutes. The parents of the Cochlear Implanted children were asked to answer the survey with the best of their experience. Results: The overall survey results showed that majority of the respondents observed a variety of problems related to the usage, management and maintenance of Cochlear Implant during this COVID-19 pandemic condition. Conclusions: This report suggests that hearing health care requires a radical rethinking of service delivery and create the momentum to rapidly formulate innovative digital and tele-health approaches in response to these changing situations.