Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

ABSTRACT

The goal of this study was determining the frequency distribution of hearing loss among the students of public elementary schools of Urmia .This Cross – sectional descriptive study was done in Public elementary schools of Urmia in academic year 1378 – 79 Hijri Solar. Three thousand ears of 1500 students (750 girls and 750 boys, chosen randomly at two stages) from the primary school students. From the whole students undergone screening, 93.4% passed and 6.6% failed. An overall 5.8% hearing loss was found in this population including 4.27% bilateral and 1.53% one sided hearing loss. 3.27% of population suffered from conductive, 2.4% of sensory – neural and 0.14% of mixed hearing loss. Abnormal conditions of external ear canal was found in 5.1% of subjects mostly cerumen (3.1%). Abnormal tympanic membrane were seen more frequently among the girls. Abnormal conditions of tympanic membrane (14.4%) was observed more frequently in the age group of 7 year and this difference was staistically meaningful (P<0.001). Abnormal tympanogram was observed in 13.23% of subjects, mostly type C (5.37%), more common in girls, and the difference was statistically meaningful (P<0.05) regarding the sex of subjects. An overall 7.6% of screened students were in need of medical care and 1.13% of them were in need of rehabilitation services. General information about hearing problems was very low among students themselves (39.1%), their parents (36.8%), and their teachers(18.4%).