Objective: The objective of the study is to determine the prevalence of hearing loss through the Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening Program.

Methodology: An analytical cross–sectional study was performed on the sample size of 712 neonates. Non-probability sampling technique was used in this study. Data was collected from newborn nursery of Pediatric Department of Gulab Devi Teaching Hospital, Lahore Pakistan from February 2023 to December 2023. All healthy neonates discharged from Hospital were included in this study. Neonates with any medical conditions were excluded. The SPSS version 23.0 package was used for statistical analysis. Frequencies and percentage were used to report qualitative variables such as age, gender and results of hearing screening.

Results: Total Sample size was 712,out of which 381 (53.5%) were male and 331 (46.5%) were female. Both ears of 501(70.4%) neonates were pass and 211(29.6%) were referred. Out of referred ears 182 (25.6%) were due to noise. The ears of 590(82.9%) subjects were tested after 24 hours and ears of122 (17.1%) were tested within 24 hours. Only 34(4.8%) patients visited after 4 weeks for follow-up, out of which 24(3.3%) passed hearing screening and 10(1.4%) were referred.

Conclusion: Our study shows High “pass” percentage and low ‘referral’ percentage for universal newborn hearing screening as well as in follow-up cases. A large number of neonates were “referred” due to noisy test environment and on whom tests were performed before 24 hours of age as there could be possibility of physiological changes and debris in the ear canal etc. 

Hadia Sultan has completed her Masters in Audiology and Hearing Sciences from University of Lahore Pakistan at age of 27. She was senior Lecturer at Gulab Devi Teaching Hospital Lahore Pakistan. She has 15 publications. Currently She is working as Audiologist in Oslo, Norway. She has been serving as an editorial board member at University of Health Sciences Lahore, Pakistan.