Benefit and pitfalls of newborn hearing screening

The importance of universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) in identifying hearing-impaired infants as early as possible is already well recognized. Transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE) have been established as a reliable method for UNHS in full term infants. This is a cross sectional study between April 2003--December 2005. Thirteen thousand five hundred and ninety eight (13,598) newborns were screened for hearing loss with portable otoacoustic emission (OAE) before discharge. The initial coverage rate during the 3 years study period was 85.9% (13,598) with 89.2% (3762), 79.0% (4480) and 90.3% (5356) for 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively. The mean age when hearing loss was diagnosed using ABR were 3.56 months old, 3.08 months old, and 2.25 months old and 3.01 months old for 2003, 2004, 2005 respectively and it was statistically significant. The defaulter rate at the third stage during the 3 years study period was 35% (21), 15.2% (7) and 18.2% (2) for 2003, 2004 and 2005 respectively. This study showed significant improvement in initial referral rate, coverage rate and age of diagnosis. However, we need to improve on high defaulter rates.