PURPOSE:
to establish which risk index for hearing loss shows the highest prevalence of 'failure' in newborn hearing screening.
METHODS:
using a retrospective analysis of medical records involving 702 infants undergoing neonatal hearing screening in the Audiology Clinic of the Federal University of Bahia in the period 2007-2011, the chi-square test was carried out for the hypothesis of no association between the risk indices and 'failure' of the newborn hearing screening.
RESULTS:
in relation to the infants studied, 352 (50.29%) were male and 348 patients (49.71%) were females, two had no references as to their gender. Most babies were between one to three months of age and 45.40% of babies were born prematurely. It was found that infants showed the following risk indices: 28.83% had hyperbilirubinemia; 22.54% had a history of congenital infection; 15.06% were born weighing less than 1,500 grams; 8.21% had Apgar scores of 0-4 in the 1st minute; 5.07% had Apgar scores 0-6 in the 5th minute; 9.09% received artificial respiration; 4.09% had syndromes associated with hearing loss and only 1 (0.84%) infant had bacterial meningitis. Among these infants, 92.45% had no family history of hearing impairment and 97.09% had no craniofacial malformation.
CONCLUSION:
there were associations between five risk indices and 'failure' in neonatal hearing screening. Risk indices showed the following decreasing order of prevalence: Apgar score 0-4 in the 1st minute; craniofacial malformations; syndromes associated with hearing loss; Apgar score 0-6 in the 5th minutes; artificial respiration.
Risk Index; Hearing Loss; Neonatal Screening
