Evaluation of Newborn Hearing Screening Results in a Period of Four Years Newborn Hearing Screening Results

INTRODUCTION: Congenital hearing loss is found to be the most common congenital defect among newborns. After birth, newborn hearing screening program aims to detect congenital hearing loss as early as possible. The aim of this study was to evaluate and present our hospital’s newborn hearing screening program results including 8451 babies for a period of four years.
METHODS: Babies who were born in our hospital’s Obstetric Department between January 2013 and December 2016 and babies who were referred from other regional hospitals due to presence of a risk factor for hearing loss were included in the study. During working hours, babies were initially screened with TOAE test performed by an audiometrist before hospital discharge. Babies who failed TOAE test for 2 times and babies with risk factors or the ones referred from other hospitals were all evaluated by TABR as a secondary level screening. The results of the screening program and the records of the babies were evaluated.
RESULTS: A total of 8451 newborns were screened for congenital hearing loss during 4 years period. With first level screening, 4986 babies were evaluated with TOAE. Four thousand and seven babies with risk factors and the ones who were referred because of failure of TOAE for 2 times,were tested with TABR. Of the 4968 babies who were screened with TOAE, 4134(83,2%) passed the test. Of the 834 (16,7%) babies who were called for the second TOAE test, 524 (10,5%) passed the test, whereas 310 (6,2%) did not comefor a control test. Only 3652 (91,1%) babies passed the TABR test, whereas 355 (8,8%) were called for a second TABR test. Hundred and ten (2,7%) babies were not brought for control testing. Of the 245 (6,1%) babies who were brought for second TABR test, 98 (2,4%) of them were referred for tertiary level evaluation. Nineteen babies (0,22%) were found to have congenital hearing loss.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: With congenital hearing screening, the aim is to test every newborn in order to detect congenital hearing loss as early as possible after birth. Early identification and rehabilitation of the babies with congenital hearing loss will give an opportunity for optimum social, emotional and linguistic development.