OBJECTIVETo study how to perform the hearing screening on the infants in the rural area.

METHODSThree thousand nine hundreds and twenty-two infants, about 84% of them from rural, were born in the People Hospital of LaiZhou City from January to December in 2004. The infants were performed fast hearing screening by transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) after the birth in 2-7 days. The fail cases were checked again after 4-6 weeks, and then were diagnosed if they still failed after following-up.

RESULTSThe infants (3612/3922, 92.1%) have been checked by TEOAE, and the examination was free in the poverty cases. The rate passed on the first check was 69.96% (2527/3922), but 1085 infants failed (30.4%), while 310 infants have not been checked (7.9%). In the 1085 cases that should be rechecked, there was only 633 cases (58.34%) accepted the check on time, while 452 cases (41.66%) missed. In the 163 cases with high-risk infants in 2004, 114 infants (69.96%) were checked, but 49 infants (29.04%) were not checked. Fourteen cases failed in the recheck, and 11 of them were checked by ABR. Two cases were found to be moderate and severe hearing loss in binaural respectively and 4 cases with mild hearing loss in monaural while 3 cases were normal.

CONCLUSIONSIt is necessary and viable for the infants on hearing screening in the rural area It should be set up and perfected the model for infants on hearing screening in rural area as soon as possible; it should be free for the poor infants to make sure everyone enjoy the health care.