Objectives: To determine the degree and pattern of hearing impairment among patients attending audiology department of a tertiary level hospital.
Methods: This was a cross sectional observational study which was carried out in the department of audiology of National Institute of ENT(NIENT) during the period of March 2015 to June 2017. A total number of 8338 patients complaining hearing impairment were included in this study. The clinical diagnosis was established by history, detailed clinical examination including otoscopic examination and all findings were recorded. Hearing assessment was done by different hearing tests according to age and need of patient. Pure Tone Average (PTA) was done on averaging the hearing threshold at 0.5, 1 and 2 kHz.
Results: In this study majority of patients (30.1%) were within 25-40 years of age and most of the patients (61.27%) were male. Mild degree of hearing loss was found to have higher prevalence (40.9%) compared to other degrees of hearing losses and more than half (52.5%) of our study population had conductive hearing loss.
Conclusion: Mild degree of hearing impairment and conductive type of hearing impairment are more prevalent. Audiological evaluation especially in suspected hearing impaired patient should be a priority.
Bangladesh J Otorhinolaryngol; October 2017; 23(2): 115-121
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.