Teleaudiology: teleconsultation for clinical preceptorship in hearing aid probe microphone measures

Abstract

Introduction: Probe microphone measures are the preferred method for verification of hearing aids. In Brazil only a small portion of audiologists who work in public services does so, primarily due to the fragility of professional training. The continuing professional education associated with preceptorship process has the potential to change this reality. The use of teleconsultation as a form of clinical preceptorship has been suggested in the literature and may represent an important opportunity for integration between teaching and services.Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of teleconsultation for clinical preceptorship in carrying out hearing aid verification procedures.Methods: 50 audiologists who work in the area of hearing aid selection and verification in public Hearing Rehabilitation services will be divided randomly into control group (n = 25) and experimental group (n = 25). All participants will have access to an educational material online (platform Cybertutor) on probe microphone measures. During this online course formative and summative assessment (case simulator) will be carried out. Subsequently, the experimental group will participate in teleconsultations, both synchronous (via interactive video and remote application control) and asynchronous (based on Cyberambulatorio - a virtual clinic for expert opinion). Participants will be evaluated using an instrument based on a model of four components proposed by Zerbini and Addad (2005): (1) Characteristics of Clientele, (2) Reactions to Training, (3) Lack of Support and Transfer (4) Training Impact at Work. The evaluation will occur at the end of the online course (experimental and control groups) and at the end of teleconsultation sessions (experimental group). The teleconsultation will be recorded and later analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results of formative assessments, performance on the case simulator and the results of each component of the evaluation instrument will be compared between the experimental and control groups by means of the Mann-Whitney test. For the experimental group, the performance of the simulator and the results of the component "Reactions to Training" obtained after the online course and after the teleconsultation will be compared using the Wilcoxon test. In all cases a significance level of 5% will be assumed.