Status of Newborn Hearing Screening Program in the State of Tamil Nadu, India

Newborn hearing screening in India is gaining momentum and more programs are getting established every year. We need to know their performance levels, strengths and weaknesses to provide suggestions for building effective future programs. The study aimed to report the status of Newborn Hearing Screening (NHS) program in the state of Tamil Nadu, India. A questionnaire on "Newborn Hearing Screening Survey" was developed and sent to 80 sites with NHS facility all over Tamil Nadu, India. The information collected was subjected to descriptive statistical analyses. On a 95% return rate, private sector contribution towards NHS program are the highest and most of the private hospitals have outsourced the NHS program. In most of the sites, audiologists are incharge of the NHS program and carried out the NHS testing. The majority of sites (67.1%) follow selective screening such as high risk factors, doctor's referral and admission at NICU. The preferred testing was TEOAE in the screening program. NHS protocol was found to be variable at each site and for each patient. The time between second screening and diagnostic testing went up to 3-6 months. However, there is a lack of organized system for documenting the program outcome. The result of this study calls the need for wider implementation of UNHS and to introduce a centralised state or local reporting system for documenting and tracking the infants with hearing impairment.