Prevalence of Hearing Loss Diagnosed for the First Time in Primary School Children in Damascus, Syria

Background and Aim: Hearing loss is considered a main cause of speech-language delay and academic performance retardation. This study aimed to detect the prevalence of hearing loss diagnosed for the first time in primary school children. Methods: A cross-sectional study has involved 624, randomly chosen, primary school children. The children have undergone hearing screening using tympanometry, and pure tone audiometry screening in order to detect the children with undiagnosed hearing loss. Results: Six hundred and twenty-four children underwent tympanometry which showed that 481 children have type A Tympanogram, 39 have type C, 16 have type A in one ear and type C in the other, 78 have type B, and 10 of them have type B in one ear and type C in the other. Then all children underwent pure tone audiometry screening and this showed that 565 children have responded to 20 dB for all frequencies, 42 have not responded to 20 dB at any frequency, 27 of them are from those children with type B Tympanogram, 10 children have not responded to 20 dB for frequencies >2000 Hz, 7 of them have not responded to 20 dB at any frequency in one ear with normal responses in the other. Conclusion: School age hearing screening is an important procedure to detect hearing loss in children in order to manage hearing loss as early as possible and avoid its consequences. Keywords: Hearing loss; sensorineural hearing loss; otitis media with effusion; pure tone audiometry; tympanometry; screening