Reliability of nurse-administered infant hearing screening using otoacoustic emissions
South African Journal of Communication Disorders
| Field | Value | |
| Title | Reliability of nurse-administered infant hearing screening using otoacoustic emissions | |
| Creator | Phanguphangu, Mukovhe Ross, Andrew J. | |
| Description |
Background: In South Africa (SA), congenital hearing loss (HL) is identified at around 30 months of age, which is later than local standards of identification by 6 weeks, mainly because of limited access to infant and newborn hearing screening (INHS). Thus, there is a critical need to explore other models of providing early detection such as nurse-administered INHS. Objectives: This study aimed to determine the reliability of nurse-administered INHS. Method: This was a repeated-measures study where 50 infants scheduled to receive their 6-week immunisation were independently screened by two nurses and an audiologist using distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE). Data were analysed using Cohen’s kappa, using Stata v18 for Macintosh. Results: Thirteen (n = 13, 26%) infants failed DPOAE screening tests, of which four were male and nine (n = 9) were female. All participants who failed the screening were referred to the hospital for further evaluation and intervention as needed. Further analysis revealed an almost perfect agreement between audiologist- and nurse-administered screening (k = 0.81, p 0.001). Conclusion: Findings from this study demonstrate that nurses can consistently screen and identify babies with congenital HL using DPOAE screening tests. Furthermore, these findings pave the way for incorporating nurse-administered DPOAE screening into immunisation programmes, with the potential to increase access to INHS and reduce the age of identification of congenital HL to acceptable standards. Large-scale research is recommended to explore the implementation of this nurse-administered INHS in other contexts. Contribution: This study contributes to the growing body of evidence on INHS in SA. |
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| Publisher | AOSIS | |
| Date | 2025-07-25 | |
| Identifier | 10.4102/sajcd.v72i1.1092 | |
| Source | South African Journal of Communication Disorders; Vol 72, No 1 (2025); 8 pages 2225-4765 0379-8046 | |
| Language | eng | |
| Relation |
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:
https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/1092/2498
https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/1092/2499
https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/1092/2500
https://sajcd.org.za/index.php/sajcd/article/view/1092/2501
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