Education on loss to follow-up after newborn hearing screening in Thailand: a randomised controlled trial
Pittayapon Pitathawatchai1, Panupong Wanachottrakul1, Pattarawadee Prayuenyong1
1Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand.
Objective:
To assess whether bedside parental education improves the loss to follow-up (LTF) rate after undergoing universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) in Thailand.
Design:
A randomised controlled trial.
Study Sample:
Parents of newborns who did not pass the first-stage hearing screening were included and randomly allocated to the control and intervention groups. For parents in the control group, nurses or nurse assistants provided verbal information on the UNHS at bedside. For parents in the intervention group, a physician provided detailed verbal and written information at bedside. LTF was defined as any referred newborns who did not attend the rescreening, diagnostic, or intervention stage by 1, 3 or 6 months of age.
Results:
Among 5,148 newborns, 271 who did not pass the screening were included. The LTF rate in the intervention group (10.37%, 14/135 participants) was significantly lower than that in the control group (21.32%, 29/136 participants) in the intention-to-treat analysis (p = 0.021, 95% confidence interval: 1.6-20.3%). Nine and five infants with hearing loss in the intervention and control groups, respectively, were identified.
Conclusion:
Bedside parental education provided by the physician, along with written information, could improve the LTF rate.This study was registered in the Thai Clinical Trials Registry (TCTR20210902008).
