Evaluation of a hearing screening questionnaire for use with Ecuadorian school-aged children.

AbstractObjective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of a teacher-administered hearing screening questionnaire to detect hearing loss among first-grade Ecuadorian children in public schools. Design: A cross-sectional design was used to compare screening results from the teacher-administered questionnaire and pure-tone audiometry. Study sample: Children were randomly selected from 117 schools. The study was conducted in two phases to accommodate different school calendars in the country. Data for both screening methods were available for 4616 children. Results: For Phase 1, almost 90% who failed the questionnaire passed audiometry; and, 85% who failed audiometry passed the questionnaire. A revised questionnaire was used for Phase 2 and 70% who failed the questionnaire passed audiometry; and 85% who failed audiometry, passed the questionnaire. Of the 27 children identified in Phase 2 as having hearing loss at the time screening was done, 88.9% failed audiometry, but only 22.2% failed th...