Abstract
Background and Objective: Hearing loss in neonates is one of the most important disabilities in which any delay in early diagnosis and intervention will cause a great undesirable impact on speech, language and cognitive abilities. So it is always recommended that if there is significant prevalence of neonatal hearing loss, screening programs should be performed at least on high risk population of neonates to detect cases actively. To determine prevalence of hearing loss, frequency and significance of risk factors in high risk neonates of studied population.
Materials and methods: An analytic-cross sectional study on 600 neonates who had at least one of risk factors admitted at Pediatrics, Alzahra and Taleghani hospitals was performed during years 2004-2005. Our protocol was inpatient OAE, outpatient OAE after 2 weeks in “ refer” cases of first OAE, and ABR in “refers” of 2nd OAE. All Data analysed by Chi² Test ، t-Test and Exact Fisher (with the help Univariate analysis)Test.
Results: The frequency of hearing loss in our samples was 3.5%. Mean age of definite diagnosis was the day 105. The most common risk factors that surveyed were hyper bilirubinemia, ototoxic medications usage (at neonatal period), and birth weight less than 1500g. The statistically significant risk factors with increased probability of hearing loss were ototoxic medication usage of mother during pregnancy, and birth weight less than 1500g; Hyperbilirubinemia requiring exchange transfusion had marginally significance.
Conclusion: Because of significant frequency of hearing loss in our sample population, hearing screening among high risk neonates is effective, feasible, and cost-effective. Case- control and cohort studies can clarify ambiguities about other aforementioned risk factors.