Exploring Parental Perspectives and Attitudes Towards Pre and Post Implantation Services in Pakistan

Abstract

For children with severe to profound hearing loss, cochlear implantation is one of the most popular and successful treatments. Therefore, parents have a lot of hopes and expectations for the cochlear implantation procedure. The current study's objective is to assess the attitudes and expectations of Pakistani parents towards various aspects of cochlear implantation. In order to achieve this purpose, the parents' perspective questionnaire, developed by Yorgun et al. was modified by the authors to suit the Pakistani setting. Parents of 72 Pakistani children (38 males and 34 females) with CI from major cities of Pakistan. Ages of the children ranged from 2 to 27. A questionnaire was created and distributed using google forms in both English and Urdu (national language of Pakistan). The domains of the questionnaire's items were decision for implantation, process for implantation, support, communication, self-confidence, social relationship, education, service of in plantation centres, well-being and happiness factors. All of the parents agreed how hard it was to decide whether to implant their child, but they were all relieved when their child started hearing following the transplant. Most of the parents agreed that getting to know other Cochlear Implant (CI) parents were very helpful. Parents expressed great satisfaction with the assistance and practises used by the implantation centres. Communication and social abilities were in line with parental expectations. Regarding academic success, parents demonstrated strong expectations. The enhanced wellness and future life skills of their children were cited by parents as their greatest sources of satisfaction. Furthermore, the results from the inferential statistics demonstrate that there was no significant difference for either the male or female cochlear implant participants for any of the parameters. The parental perspectives that have emerged from this study can shed light on the knowledge, expectations, and difficulties that parents of children with cochlear implants face. In order to succeed after implantation, specialists may use it to alleviate parental worries.