Abstract

Congenital bilateral hearing impairment occurs in approximately 1 to 5 per 1000 live births and when permanent unilateral hearing loss is included, the incidence increases to 8 per 1000 live births. Present study was aimed to study newborn hearing screening by transient evoked otoacoustic emission test at a tertiary hospital. Material and Methods: Present study was single-center, prospective observational study, conducted in newborns (with or without risk factors for hearing impairment) born at our hospital. Handheld TEOAE device, Inter-Acoustic-EP-15 TEOAE, manufactured by Eclipse was used for Initial Screening and First Follow-Up Screening. Results: In present study, out of 734 newborns, 449 (59.9%) were males and 294 (40.1%) were females. 667 (90.87%) were in the “no risk” group and 67 (9.12%) were in the high-risk group. Among 734 newborns, 2 were confirmed to have hearing loss by AABR. The incidence of hearing impairment in this study is 2.7 per 1000 newborns with a 95% confidence interval between -0.74 to 1.28. 0.27% of newborns failed the 2 staged screening tests by TEOAE. This 0.27 % was confirmed to be hearing impaired with AABR. Considering all the limitations of the test, in the present study the sensitivity of TEOAE was found to be 75% and the specificity was 100%. The accuracy of TEOAE was found to be 15%. Conclusion: In present study, incidence of hearing impairment of 2.7 /1000 screened, with incidence of 29.8/1000 in at risk group, warrant implementation of neonatal hearing screening in India

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