earingLife is a Canadian-based health care provider pursuing an ongoing effort to improve the quality of life of individuals impaired with hearing loss. In an attempt to broaden its scope of clients, it tried to reduce the stigma associated with looking for hearing aids.

In partnership, Evaluasi conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) wherein it sent surveys to a population of “tested-not-sold” (TNS) individuals who had been tested for hearing loss but had not yet decided to purchase a hearing aid. A portion of this population was randomly exposed to motivational interviewing treatment during the survey, while a roughly equal control proportion only received objective information about the functioning of hearing aids.

For around 600 completed surveys, statistical findings suggest that exposure to the MI treatment caused at least a 54 percent (10 percentage points greater than the base rate of 19 percent) increase in “readiness to try” compared to the control survey.

We recommend (1) additional proof-of-concept research in different markets and (2) HearingLife commences to integrate motivational interviewing techniques to its business practices.