Prevalence of hearing impairment amongst school going children in the rural field practice area of the institution

Worldwide, over 275 million people are estimated to have moderate to profound hearing loss in both ears. Children with hearing impairment often experience delayed development of speech and cognitive skills, which may result in slower learning and difficulty in progressing at school. Adequate hearing is one of the main factors for good psychosocial development, by which individuals may express their thoughts, feelings, and wishes, and acquire life experience and knowledge. Therefore, hearing impairment needs to be diagnosed early for prompt therapy. Primary objectives of this study was to know prevalence of hearing impairment amongst primary school children and secondary objective was to identify the common causes of hearing impairment amongst primary school children. The cross sectional study was conducted in the government and private schools of our rural field practice area in 2013-2014 for the duration of 4 months from November 2013 to February 2014. Prevalence of Hearing loss was 8.8%. Most common cause of Hearing loss was Impacted wax and Retracted Tympanic membrane. Otological conditions-Wax followed by otitis media with effusion and chronic suppurative otitis media were the common ear problems found in our study.