Objectives: The current study was performed to establish the prevalence rate of hearing disorders in school age children.
Method: This study has been performed in a randomized manner among 1000 school-age children (500 girls and 500 boys) in the years between1976-1997 in Behbehan. All subjects underwent Audiometric evaluations, Otoscopy, and impedance audiometry. Additionally, parents, children and teachers were interviewed or asked by questionnaires regarding the familial status of parents, familial history of any hearing loss and the awareness of suffering hearing loss. The findings have been prepared in the charts and tables and the relationship between age and gender of the subjects with the incidence of hearing loss has been evaluated via the statistical test X² and hearing loss in left and right ear was compared by T-test.
Results: the findings demonstrated that 6.6% of the subjects suffered hearing loss in one ear (2.2%) or both ears (4.3%). 4.8% of the patients suffered conductive hearing loss while 1.6% suffered sensory-neural hearing loss. In .2% patients complained different types of hearing loss in the ears. Hearing loss was mostly slight and the relationship between age and gender with the incidence of hearing loss was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: Based on the findings we have concluded that in18.4% of the subjects, medical treatment was required and 0.7% of them were in need of rehabilitation. The percentage of the awareness of the hearing disorders among children, parents and teachers was 21.2%, 22.7% and 15.2% respectively.