Evaluation of Automated Auditory Brainstem Response and Oto-Acoustic Emissions in Neonatal Hearing Screening in NICU versus Primary Health Care Centers

Abstract

SUMMARY H earing loss is a common disorder, and congenital hearing impairment affects nearly 1 in every 1000 live births; it is one of the most distressing disorders and the most frequent birth defect in developed societies (White et al., 2004). It has been recognized that infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for more than 48 h form a high-risk group with the prevalence of approximately 1 in 100 (National Health Services 2020). EHDI programs might consider setting a new target of 1-2-3 months (screening completed by one month of age, audiologic diagnosis completed by two months of age, and early intervention initiated no later than three months of age) (JCIH 2019) This study was done to assess validity of both screening procedures (ATEOAEs and AABR) on NICU neonates and well infant neonates in El-Demerdash hospital environment. 510 neonates were screened in this study in the first stage ofscreening. They were divided into two groups; group I included 100 well born neonates who screened 12-28 hours after birth, and group II included 410 neonates incubated in NICU for a duration of 2- 90 days and screened just after discharge from NICU.