A Hearing Screening Program for Children in Primary Schools in Tajikistan: A Telemedicine Model

Abstract

BackgroundAccording to the guidelines of the European Scientific Consensus on Hearing (European Federation of Audiology Societies ‘EFAS’ Congress, June 2011, Warsaw, Poland), the detection and treatment of communication disorders in early school-age children is of the highest importance. This objective was adopted by the Polish president of the EFAS Council from the second half of 2011; as a result, pilot programs on children’s hearing screening were initiated in various European countries. This paper reports data from a pilot program in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.Material/MethodsWe randomly selected 143 children from 2 primary schools. Each child was assessed by pure tone audiometry and 2 questionnaires (dedicated to parents and children). The study allowed the validation of: (i) hearing screening procedures in young children, and (ii) data collection via a telemedicine model.ResultsHearing impairments were identified in 34 cases (23.7%) with a 50% ratio between unilateral and bilateral losses. We found a higher incidence of hearing impairment in children than that reported in previous Polish studies.ConclusionsThe data from the present study suggest that it is possible to use a telemedicine model to assess the hearing status of children and to provide a long-distance expert assistance. The latter is very important for rural areas without specialized medical services.

Prevalence of Hearing Loss and Associated Factors in School-Age Individuals in an Urban Area of Northeast Brazil

“…Studies that used a similar age group found different prevalences: in Canada, the prevalence was 4.7%, established through an association between a 0.5-8 kHz threshold of hearing and otoacoustic emissions; 27 in Bangladesh, the prevalence was 13% for incapacitating hearing loss, through 0.5-4 kHz threshold of hearing and otoacoustic emissions. 12 In studies that utilized the same frequencies in auditory evaluation, [28][29][30][31] the pass-criterion at 20dB was not adopted. However, the prevalence found in the present study was still high, compared with previous studies and with prevalence values of 4.92% in China, 30 2.4% in Zimbabwe, 29 10.3% of fails in Poland, 31 but lower than the 33% value found in Oman.…”

Measuring Success

“…One example of effective international program for telemapping and telerehabilitation are the programs of the World Hearing Center Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing in former Soviet Union countries and Africa (39). These projects are often connected with hearing screening projects in school-age children (40). Studies of these telehealth systems applied to cochlear implantation demonstrated high savings to the patient and patient satisfaction, particularly for follow-up mapping sessions (39,40).…”

“…These projects are often connected with hearing screening projects in school-age children (40). Studies of these telehealth systems applied to cochlear implantation demonstrated high savings to the patient and patient satisfaction, particularly for follow-up mapping sessions (39,40).…”

Telemedizinische Methoden in der Hals-Nasen-Ohrenheilkunde

“…Especially in developing countries, different audiometric examinations were tested in order to improve the telemedical identification of hearing impairment [43,[93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102]. With use of a computer-assisted audiometer in comparison to double-blind, conventional audiometry, a comparative investigation revealed an accuracy of 1.3 dB for measurement values of air conduction and 1.2 dB for bone conduction [103,104].…”