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Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy

Hearing impairment is the most frequent of the sensorial defects in humans, and if not treated promptly, can severely impair cognitive and spoken language skills. For this reason, a universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) has been established. The purpose of our study is to examine, by means of a...

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Autores principales: Gambacorta, Valeria, Orzan, Eva, Molini, Egisto, Lapenna, Ruggero, Paniconi, Matteo, Di Giovanni, Alfredo, Faralli, Mario, Ricci, Giampietro
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9688996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36421185
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9111736
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author Gambacorta, Valeria
Orzan, Eva
Molini, Egisto
Lapenna, Ruggero
Paniconi, Matteo
Di Giovanni, Alfredo
Faralli, Mario
Ricci, Giampietro
author_facet Gambacorta, Valeria
Orzan, Eva
Molini, Egisto
Lapenna, Ruggero
Paniconi, Matteo
Di Giovanni, Alfredo
Faralli, Mario
Ricci, Giampietro
author_sort Gambacorta, Valeria
collection PubMed
description Hearing impairment is the most frequent of the sensorial defects in humans, and if not treated promptly, can severely impair cognitive and spoken language skills. For this reason, a universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) has been established. The purpose of our study is to examine, by means of a retrospective analysis, the results of the UNHS program in the Umbria region during the spread of COVID-19 (2020–2021), comparing the same data from the years 2011–2012, to understand if the program has improved. Our study has shown how the coverage rate of well born babies’ (WB) screening has significantly increased to currently meet the JCIH benchmark. The percentage of WB referrals significantly decreased in 2020–2021, another indicator of the screening program’s greater efficiency in Umbria. However, a critical issue has emerged: the percentage of those lost to follow-up is greater than 30%, well above the benchmark. As far as the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly had a significant impact, it is necessary to carefully monitor those who do not access the diagnostic level. To emphasize the importance of a proper screening program, it will be helpful to strengthen the computerized data collection system and create an information network between audiologists, pediatricians and families.
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spelling pubmed-96889962022-11-25 Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy Gambacorta, Valeria Orzan, Eva Molini, Egisto Lapenna, Ruggero Paniconi, Matteo Di Giovanni, Alfredo Faralli, Mario Ricci, Giampietro Children (Basel) Article Hearing impairment is the most frequent of the sensorial defects in humans, and if not treated promptly, can severely impair cognitive and spoken language skills. For this reason, a universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) has been established. The purpose of our study is to examine, by means of a retrospective analysis, the results of the UNHS program in the Umbria region during the spread of COVID-19 (2020–2021), comparing the same data from the years 2011–2012, to understand if the program has improved. Our study has shown how the coverage rate of well born babies’ (WB) screening has significantly increased to currently meet the JCIH benchmark. The percentage of WB referrals significantly decreased in 2020–2021, another indicator of the screening program’s greater efficiency in Umbria. However, a critical issue has emerged: the percentage of those lost to follow-up is greater than 30%, well above the benchmark. As far as the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly had a significant impact, it is necessary to carefully monitor those who do not access the diagnostic level. To emphasize the importance of a proper screening program, it will be helpful to strengthen the computerized data collection system and create an information network between audiologists, pediatricians and families. MDPI 2022-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9688996/ /pubmed/36421185 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9111736 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Gambacorta, Valeria
Orzan, Eva
Molini, Egisto
Lapenna, Ruggero
Paniconi, Matteo
Di Giovanni, Alfredo
Faralli, Mario
Ricci, Giampietro
Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title_full Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title_fullStr Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title_full_unstemmed Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title_short Critical Issues in the Management of Newborn Hearing Screening in the Time of COVID-19 in Umbria, Italy
title_sort critical issues in the management of newborn hearing screening in the time of covid-19 in umbria, italy
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9688996/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36421185
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children9111736
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