Community-based infant hearing screening: Outcomes of a rural pilot programme

Community-based universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) has not been fully realised in South Africa despite the availability of contextually relevant early hearing detection and intervention guidelines. Research has confirmed the feasibility of implementing UNHS programmes in urban contexts; however, limited information exists for rural contexts.

The aim of the study was to describe the outcomes in terms of coverage rate, referral rate and follow-up rate of a 1-year UNHS pilot programme implemented at three primary health care (PHC) clinics in the Limpopo province.

A descriptive retrospective review of 2 302 audiological records of infants who underwent NHS between July 2014 to June 2015 was conducted.

The mean age at first-stage screen was 112 days (16 weeks). The coverage rate was 87% for the infants screened at 3- and 10- days clinic visits and 27% for infants screened at the 6-week immunisation visit. The first-stage referral rate was 33.9% and 8.3% for the overall second stage referral for diagnostic audiology services. The follow-up rate for rescreens at the clinical level was 77%, while for initial diagnostic assessments, it was 26%.

Although not all benchmarks were met within the first year of implementation, the high coverage- and low referral rates, especially in the last 6 months, are the first steps in improving the outcomes of the screening programme.Contribution: The findings confirm the feasibility of implementing community-based UNHS programmes in rural areas in South Africa. Regular monitoring and evaluation contribute to the success of screening programmes.