Epidemiological study on nonsyndromic hearing impairment: North Karnataka, India

BACKGROUND: In India, hearing loss is a major but often ignored problem. Sixty-three million individuals (6.3%) in India have severe hearing loss. OBJECTIVE: The present study is the first to examine epidemiological factors that are pertinent to children from North Karnataka, India, who have nonsyndromic hearing loss. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study was conducted by attending government and private ENT hospitals and special schools for deaf children in North Karnataka. A total of 638 children with hearing loss of age ranging from 1 to 18 years were screened. Two hundred and seventy out of 638 were excluded from the study because of other anomalies and some were not ready to participate in the study. A semistructured interview was followed for data collection. All the required personal demographic details and medical details of ear examination of inspection history, otoscopy, tympanometry, and pure-tone audiometry were noted. Age, gender, hearing loss type severity, family history, and consanguinity were considered epidemiological factors in the study. RESULTS: Statistical analysis showed that there was no significant association of age difference between the two genders, but the majority of male children were deaf compared to female children (63.9% vs. 36.1%). Prelingual hearing loss was observed in 94.6% and postlingual hearing loss was in 5.4%. 93.5% of children had bilateral deafness and only 6.5% had unilateral deafness. In the present study population, 3.5% of children had mild, 7.3% had moderate, 2.7% had severe, and 86.4% had profound hearing loss. 83.2% of the children had a family history of deafness. There was no significant association of consanguinity to deafness in our study group (P = 0.07). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of hearing loss was high in the North Karnataka population. We observed the following in our research group: gender, poor education or lack of awareness of pregnancy, and lack of knowledge of consanguinity. so, People need to Know more about these disorders and this is only possible by the Research or education.