Duration of Admission and Birth Weight and Their Association with Presence of Hearing Loss in BERA among High Risk Infants Admitted To NICU

Background: Early detection is a vitally important element in providing appropriate support for deaf and hearing-impaired babies that will help them enjoy equal opportunities in society alongside all other children. The present study was carried out with an aim to evaluate the duration of admission and birth weight and their association with presence of Hearing Loss in BERA among High Risk Infants admitted to NICU. Material and Methods: This was a Cross-sectional prospective study conducted during the period starting from Jun 2020 to Dec 2021 in a tertiary care teaching hospital Dr R.P.GMC Kangra at Tanda, North India on 50 High Risk Infants admitted to NICU selected through Universal sampling. These infants underwent BERA which was conducted twice; once at the time of discharge from hospital and then after a period of three months. Results: Maximum of the study participants were in the age group of 1-3 months (34%). The mean age of the study participants was observed to be 5.8±2.9 months. Majority of the study participants were females (64%), while 36% of them were males. Profound hearing loss and minimal hearing loss was observed in 14% and 6% of the infants respectively. Majority of the study infants were admitted to the NICU for duration of 10-20 days (60.0%). No significant association was observed between duration of NICU admission and presence of hearing loss (p-value-0.543). LBW and VLBW were present in 6% and 2% of the study participants, respectively. Higher proportion of infants with LBW had hearing loss as compared to those with normal birth weight. However, this difference was not statistically significant (p-value–0.072) Conclusion: The study concluded that higher proportions of infants with LBW and NICU admission for a duration of 21-30 days were found to have hearing loss but this difference was not found to be statistically significant.