Hospital-Based Newborn Hearing Screening Across The Globe: A Systematic Review & Preliminary Report On Guatemala’s Program

Abstract

Background: An average of 3 out of every 1000 children are born with a hearing loss. Both hearing screening and intervention services have a significant positive impact on these children. The current study focused on screening services. There were two objectives. 1. Systematic Review: To identify and examine the reported factors and outcomes of hospital-based newborn hearing screening (NHS) programs. Factors and outcomes include screening protocol, type of equipment, coverage rates, referral rates, loss to follow up (LTF) rates and Birth Screening Performance Index (BSPI) 2. Guatemala NHS Program: To examine outcomes from Guatemala’s program relative to the systematic review results. Methods: Eligible studies published in English up to February 2019 were identified through searches of PubMed (NCBI), the Cochrane Library, ASHA Wire and relevant article reference lists. The data were screened using pre-defined inclusion and exclusion criteria to generate a list of eligible articles. Data extracted included age at screening, screening rate, referral rate, LTF rate, and number of newborns identified with permanent congenital hearing loss. Systematic Review Results: This review identifies factors that affect BSPI, coverage rates, referral rates and loss to follow up rates in hospital-based universal NHS programs. 45 articles were included for data extraction and analysis.