Neonatal Hearing Screening: failures, hearing loss and risk indicators

Abstract

To check the rate of failure, hearing loss and its association with demographic variables and risk indicators for hearing loss in newborns submitted to the Newborn Hearing Screening in a secondary hospital.

Materials and methods: Cross-sectional and retrospective study, involving 1,570 newborns submitted to the different stages of the Newborn Hearing Screening Program. Initially, we carried out otoacoustic emission tests (ILO Echocheck) and the cochlear-eyelid reflex. Afterwards, we analyzed the demographic and clinical characteristics of the newborns, screening rate of failure, hearing loss and its association with demographic variables and risk indicators.

Results: Twenty-six newborns had failures in the first stages of the Program (1.7%), who were then referred to diagnostic evaluation. Of these, 16 (61.5%) did not come, two (7.7%) had normal results and eight (30.8%) were diagnosed with hearing disorders. The screening failure rate was 1.7% and the frequency of hearing disorders was 0.5%.

Conclusions: Pre-term newborns of very low birth weights had higher rates of screening failures and a greater occurrence of hearing changes. The factors associated with screening failure and hearing changes were similar to the ones described in the literature.

Figure 1

Number and percentage of children considered in the Newborn Hearing Screening Program of the Vereador José Storópolli Hospital.