Infants Hearing Assessment process after referring newborn hearing screening

Abstract

Introduction: Hearing assessment is essential until the third month of life in order to enable early intervention, allowing the child’s proper speech and language development. Nevertheless, this process faces several barriers that may delay its conclusion. Purpose: To investigate aspects in the hearing assessment process in infants who refers newborn hearing screening (NHS), describing the age at which screening and diagnosis were performed, the reasons for evasion or loss to follow up, and reasons for missing appointments during the process, reasons for delay in completing the diagnosis, and the audiological results of those who completed this process. Methods: This is a quantitative, descriptive, and observational study that was carried out at a hearing health center in São Paulo. The study analyzed 68 medical records from children who referred NHS, born in São Paulo city maternity hospitals, and then referred to a hearing health center, from January to June 2019. Data were analyzed based on the quality criteria established by national and international committees. Results: There was an adherence lower than expected for hearing assessment (76.5%); contact with parents using mobile phones, after missing the appointments, was not efficient (75%). NICU stay for more than five days was the most common risk indicator (25%). Half of the children analyzed process completed the diagnosis, 42.2% of the children were still in the process, and 7.7% were lost in the process. Most of the children who completed the diagnosis had some type and degree of hearing loss (65.4%). Conclusion: Although NHS is being performed as expected in more than 95% of the newborns, hearing assessment is not being completed in more than 90% of the children who referred NHS. New strategies are needed in order to reduce loss to follow-up in the hearing assessment process.