Since the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the use of smartphone applications (Apps) in healthcare has become increasingly popular. Self-hearing test Apps are among those and are available on both Android and iOS platforms. We aimed to study the diagnostic accuracy of those Apps. Our study included 38 adult patients (20 males and 18 females; age 20-68 years, mean 46 years) attending the Audiovestibular Medicine Clinic at our center. We collected data prospectively from September 2020 until May 2021. The Apps we used were e-audiologia (EHT) for Android and Yuichi Sakashita (YSHT) for iOS. We compared the hearing thresholds from self-hearing assessment at home to those from conventional gold standard pure tone audiometry (PTA). We defined hearing loss as hearing thresholds exceeding 30-dB HL at one or 25-dB HL at more than one of the following frequencies: 500 Hz, 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, or 50 dB at 4000 Hz. The overall sensitivity was 100%, but the specificity was 76% for both Apps combined (74% for YSHT and 81% for EHT). There was a strong positive correlation between PTA and hearing App thresholds (Pearson's correlation, p < 0.001), and both demonstrated similar trends. The maximum mean difference in hearing thresholds between App-based hearing assessment and PTA was at 500 Hz (10.5-dB HL). EHT and YSHT Apps have a great potential for routine use for hearing screening and monitoring hearing disorders at various settings, including primary care, emergency otolaryngology clinics, nursing homes, and by the public.
Carvalho et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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