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10/27/2018  |   2:00 PM - 3:00 PM   |  Kramer Lecture Theater 2

Hearing Loss Screening in a Primary School in Belabo Cameroon. Preliminary Results

Background Hearing screening is not performed at the entry of children in the educational system in Cameroon. Usually, hearing loss is diagnosed too late, when the child faces failure. We undertook cross sectional study by conducting a hearing screening session in lower classes (Class 1 and Class 2) of a public school located in Belabo (mid-rural mid-urban town), East region of Cameroon in order to assess the hearing status of the pupils. We used the a screening audiometer donated by the Coalition for Global Hearing Health to screen 94 pupils. All were screened by the same examinator (first author) in a boothless quiet room. A healthy adult, our standard was tested in a soundproof box in the quiet room. We adjusted the results according to the difference between the two milieus. We compared the hearing status to the academic results performed during the previous class term. The hearing was considered to be impaired if the binaural hearing level was ? 30dB HL. We screened 94 pupils (52 boys and 42 girls). Mean age was 6.9 years (minimum= 4, maximum= 5). 25 children were found to have wax plugs in the external auditory canal (26.59%). 35 were found to suffer some kind of hearing impairment (37.23%). Average marks obtained in the previous term was 11.22/20. It was 11.39/20 in the hearing impaired group and 11.22/20 in the normal hearing group. The parents of hearing impaired children were convoked in the regional hospital for further investigation and diagnosis of their children. Hearing impairment was common in our study group. Though it does not actually seem to impact the school performance, we recommend that pupils be screened at their entry in primary school in order to early detect any abnormality that could worsen with time.

• importance of early detection of hearing loss
• use of a screening audiometer
• management of screened patients

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Jean Valentin Fokouo (POC,Primary Presenter), Ministry of Health, valentin.fokouo@gmail.com;
I am a Cameroonian born Otolaryngologist.