Hearing impairment is one of the most common disabilities among Western populations and represents a considerable communication disorder. Increasing human longevity is expected to raise the number of elderly people suffering from hearing loss. A major challenge of audiological rehabilitation has been to encourage those who have fitted hearing aids to use them. The aim of the present study was to describe hearing-aid use among older adults and to identify motivational factors associated with

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... ing-aid use. A 17-item questionnaire was developed. Ninety participants ( ]65 years of age) were recruited from a waiting list for hearing-aid refitting. Twenty-two percent had used their previously fitted hearing aids for less than one hour per day. A factor analysis revealed four factors related to hearing-aid use (Cronbach's alpha): 'accepted need'Ádefined as the acknowledgement of a need for hearing aids (0.869); 'follow-up support'Ádefined as organized check-ups and accessibility to professionals (0.900); 'social assessment' (0.552); and 'consciousness' (0.505). The first two factors explained 25% and 24% of the variance, respectively. Logistic regression revealed that the use of hearing aids was significantly associated with 'accepted need' and 'follow-up support', suggesting that these factors are important and should be emphasized in rehabilitation programmes.