Comparative study of the efficacy between new and routine newborn hearing screening protocols in public hospital, Thailand

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy indicators between new and routine newborn hearing screening protocols in Chiangrai Prachanukroh Hospital. Methods: This intervention study comprised a historical component, wherein data was extracted from electronic medical records of all live newborns born during July–September 2022, representing the routine protocol group (screening within 7 days, rescreening ∼3 months post-discharge, diagnosis by 6 months). The prospective study focused on newborns delivered from July–September 2023, classified under the new protocol group (screening within 24–48 h, rescreening ∼1 month, diagnosis by 3 months). The percentages of hearing screenings culminating in audiological diagnoses were compared between the two groups. Results: Of total 2250 newborns participated, significant differences were observed between the new and routine protocol groups (1126 and 1124 newborns) in screening coverage within 1-month-old (95.29% and 83.9%) (p < 0.001), referral rate (7.74% and 15.43%) (p < 0.001), and audiological diagnosis within 3-month-old (66.67% and 5.26%) (p = 0.001), but not in the follow-up rescreening rate (50.60% and 43.42%) (p = 0.282). Conclusions: This improvement was attributed to the implementation of the newborn hearing screening policy from Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health. The policy was associated with improvement and multidisciplinary team cooperation improved some benchmark indicators. Nonetheless, referral, follow-up, and diagnosis rates require further improvement to meet universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) program standards and control quality.