Neonatology and Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Salvatore Dessole
Gynecologic and Obstetric Clinic, Department of Surgical, Microsurgical and Medical Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Giovanni Sotgiu
Clinical Epidemiology and Medical Statistics Unit, Department of Medical, Surgical and Experimental Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Anna Rita Fetoni
Audiology Section, Department of Neuroscience, Reproductive Sciences and Dentistry, Federico II University, 80138 Naples, Italy
Background: Objectives of the present work were to analyze the prevalence of hearing loss in our population of screened newborns during the first 9 years of the universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) program at University Hospital Sassari (Italy) (AOU Sassari), to analyze the risk factors involved, and to analyze our effectiveness in terms of referral rates and dropout rates. Methods: Monocentric retrospective study whose target population included all the newborns born or referred to our hospital between 2011 and 2019. Results: From 2011 to 2019, a total of 11,688 babies were enrolled in our screening program. In total, 3.9‰ of wellborn babies and 3.58% of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) babies had some degree of hearing loss. The most frequently observed risk factors among non-NICU babies were family history of hearing loss (3.34%) and craniofacial anomalies (0.16%), among NICU babies were low birth weight (54.91%) and prematurity (24.33%). In the multivariate analysis, family history of hearing loss (p p p p = 0.04) and HIV (p = 0.03) were confirmed as risk factors. Conclusions: Our data are largely consistent with the literature and most results were expected, one relevant exception being the possible role of NICU as a confounding factor and the limited number of risk factors confirmed in the multivariate analysis.
