Screening methods for childhood hearing impairment in rural Bangladesh

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine a feasible strategy for screening young children in rural Bangladesh for hearing impairments. Methods Trained community health workers (CHWs) screened 4003 children between the ages of 2 and 9 years using conditioned play audiometry (CPA) and a subset of 569 of these children (ages 2-5 years), using physiologic (otoacoustic emissions [OAEs] and tympanometry). Measures of frequency and cross-tabulations are presented to describe results. Results Hearing screening using CPA was feasible for most children in the 6-9 years age range, but not for the younger children due to shyness and lack of cooperation. More than two thirds of the younger children were untestable on CPA. In response to this limitation, OAEs and…