FEASIBILITY OF COMMUNITY-BASED HEARING SCREENING USING TRANSIENT EVOKED OTOACOUSTIC EMISSIONS

This study investigated the feasibility of obtaining transient evoked otoacoustic emissions for hearing screening purposes from infants and children at seven child health clinics. Factors affecting the outcomes of the community hearing screening program were examined. The subject group comprised 2305 children aged two weeks to 11 y 11 mon. Many chi ldren were attending the clinics for initial immunisation at two month s of age. While there were no exclusion criteria for the 1305 young in fants tested who were in this category, all other children were screen ed only upon receipt of a referral from clinic nurses. Results indicat ed that 182 children (7.9%) did not complete the screening for both ea rs within the time constraint (usually 15 min) of a child health clini c visit. Three hundred and sixty-two children (15.7%) failed the first screening. Of the 226 children who returned for a second screening te st, separated from the first by at least two weeks, 121 children faile d. With parents' consent, 107 children (4.6% of all participants) were referred for diagnostic or medical assessment. Subsequently, 77 out o f 94 children who received audiological or medical assessment were fou nd to have some degree of hearing impairment. The majority of positive screening results were associated with middle ear disorder. The resul ts suggest that TEOAE screening has potential as a technique in the co mmunity health setting but improvements in instrumentation are require d to reduce 'could not test' cases and to separate probable conductive hearing loss from cases likely to have other disorders.