Neonatal Hearing Screening: failures, hearing loss and risk indicators

ABSTRACT: To check the rate of failure, hearing loss and its association with demographic variables and risk indicators for hearing loss in newborns submitted to the Newborn Hearing Screening in a secondary hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cross-sectional and retrospective study, involving 1,570 newborns submitted to the different stages of the Newborn Hearing Screening Program. Initially, we carried out otoacoustic emission tests (ILO Echocheck) and the cochlear-eyelid reflex. Afterwards, we analyzed the demographic and clinical characteristics of the newborns, screening rate of failure, hearing loss and its association with demographic variables and risk indicators. RESULTS: Twenty-six newborns had failures in the first stages of the Program (1.7%), who were then referred to diagnostic evaluation. Of these, 16 (61.5%) did not come, two (7.7%) had normal results and eight (30.8%) were diagnosed with hearing disorders. The screening failure rate was 1.7% and the frequency of hearing disorders was 0.5%. CONCLUSIONS: Pre-term newborns of very low birth weights had higher rates of screening failures and a greater occurrence of hearing changes. The factors associated with screening failure and hearing changes were similar to the ones described in the literature.