Development of a Mobile-app based free field click test against conventional free field voice test: A randomized controlled trial

Objective:Hearing loss is a prevalent disease with free field voice test (FFVT) being a common hearing test performed.FFVT has its own disadvantage as a screening tool as there is no standardization of speech among examiners.We aim to invent mobile-app based hearing screening using Flutter-Dart programming language that mimics findings of FFVT.The app is termed as Free field click test (FFCT).Our aim is to compare sensitivitys FFVT&FFCT which were compared with PTA.Categorical data were analyzed with Chi-square test,non-categorical data were calculated with Student t-test for statistical significance. Results:Results were calculated based on degree of hearing loss against PTA.FFCT‘s rate of detection of hearing loss was significant for all degrees of hearing loss with p-values of <0.05. FFVT’s detection rate was only significant to normal hearing, moderate & severe hearing loss. FFCT had higher sensitivity of 94.1% for normal hearing compared to 52% for FFVT.FFVT had higher specificity but with a marginal difference only.A higher rate of accuracy (94%) and strength of the correlation (0.97) were obtained for FFCT than FFVT. Conclusion:FFCT is a more sensitive&accurate tool than FFVT in detecting hearing thresholds. It proves to be an ideal tool to screen hearing loss and is convenient in times of social distancing during COVID-19 pandemic now.