Preventive Audiology: Screening for Hearing Impairment in Children Having Recurrent URTI

A late detection of hearing impairment in children can affect speech and language development. Otitis media with effusion (OME) associated with risk factors like recurrent upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) is considered the most common cause of silent hearing impairment among children. So this study was carried out to screen such at risk children for hearing impairment. The study was conducted on 1000 children in the age group of 2-12 years who presented to the OPD of ENT and Pediatrics Department, Govt Medical College with the complaint of recurrent URTI. The children were screened by history taking, general physical examination and local ENT examination. This was followed by impedance audiometry and pure tone audiometry (PTA, wherever indicated). Children with discharging ears and perforated tympanic membrane (TM) were excluded from the study. The most common presenting complaint was nasal discharge (67.9 %), followed by mouth breathing (66.3 %) and snoring (65 %). Only 16.2 % cases actually complained of some hearing impairment on exploratory history indicating the silent nature of OME. On examination 52.65 % cases had a normal looking TM whereas 41.2 % had a dull retracted TM. Results of impedance audiometry showed Type A graph in 56.75 %, Type B in 33.4 % indicating OME and Type C in 9.85 % indicating Eustachian tube dysfunction. PTA showed a mild conductive hearing loss in 26.7 % cases. OME is quite prevalent in high risk children and incidence of OME resulting in silent hearing impairment is quite high especially in young children having recurrent URTI. Impedance audiometry has been proved to be an objective screening tool for the same with a diagnostic accuracy of 87 % and thus under preventive audiology, it has a definite role in young children having recurrent URTI.