Objective: 1) To share the experience in establishing the first province to set up the universal newborn hearing screening (UNHS) in Thailand. 2) To report the results of four consecutive years of UNHS in Trang.

Materials and Methods: All newborns in Trang province, between October 2013 and September 2017, who received UNHS, were included in this study. The present study was a descriptive study.

Results: There were three main obstacles to be solved to establish the program. There was no supported budget from the central government to run the UNHS. There was a lack of audiologists or trained personnel to run the UNHS. Finally, there was no province in Thailand that has done the project before. A budget for the Trang’s UNHS project was allocated, which was 3,100,000 baht from the Trang provincial administrative organization, to purchase hearing screening machines for every community hospital. The personnel to run the UNHS, which were nurses, were trained in every hospital. The protocols, referral, and follow-up programs were newly designed to establish the hospital network for the program. There were 28,254 newborns in Trang and 27,983 (99.04%) were screened. The high-risk newborns were 1,415 (5.1%). The low-risk group was 26,568 (94.9%). The referral rate of transient evoked otoacoustic emission (TEOAE) was 5.9%. In the low-risk past screening group, there was one newborn (0.005%) that presented later with delayed speech and profound hearing loss after 1½ years and the MRI showed bilateral IAC stenosis. There were two newborns with severe hearing loss, one was Mondini dysplasia, and the other was normal on imaging, in 169 unpassed low-risk newborns. In the high-risk group, 73 (5.2%) were unpassed. After diagnostic tests, 71 (97.2%) were normal, one had severe hearing loss with normal imaging, and the other had bilateral microtia. The incidence of bilateral severe SNHL in high-risk newborn was (1/1,415) 0.71:1,000 births. The incidence of bilateral severe SNHL in low-risk newborn was (3/26,568) 0.11:1,000 births. After two years of follow-up, there was no delayed speech due to hearing loss in all the present study newborns.

Conclusion: The rate of congenital hearing loss is not as high as in the literature, but the UNHS is still important to the newborns and their parents.

Keywords: UNHS in Trang, Province-based UNHS, Incidence of hearing loss in newborn

DOI: doi.org/10.35755/jmedassocthai.2021.01.11432

Received 26 May 2020 | Revised 21 August 2020 | Accepted 21 August 2020