Prognostic factors in non-organic hearing loss in children

Abstract

Objective

Exploring factors that predict a favourable clinical outcome in non-organic hearing loss (NOHL) in children. NOHL is defined as a subjective hearing loss without correlation in objective measures.

Design

Retrospective analysis of all childrens’ data with the diagnosis NOHL seen between 2005 and 2017 at a tertiary referral centre.

Study sample

Sixty-seven children (44 female, 23 male; mean age 11.26 years) were included. Statistical analyses included descriptive statistics, logistic regression, correlations, and Mann–Whitney U tests.

Results

A quarter of the children (17/67) had been provided previously with hearing aids without objective sensorineural hearing loss. Having been provided with hearing aids before the first visit to our clinic lowered the chance of normal hearing at the final visit by 76%. The prescription of hearing aids was significantly more likely in girls. Children provided with hearing aids were significantly older than those without and the time span between the first occurrence of the NOHL and first presentation at our department was longer than in children not provided with hearing aids.

Conclusions

In cases of NOHL, hearing aid prescription is not indicated and significantly lowers a child’s chance of full recovery and, thus, should not be prescribed unless NOHL is ruled out.

Keywords:

• Non-organic hearing loss
• functional hearing loss
• deafness
• children
• hearing aids

Author contributions

Till Flügel: Review and editing, critical revision; Saskia Kiehn: Writing – original draft, review and editing, statistical analysis, data curation; Jana-C. Koseki: Methodology, investigation, data collection; Frank Müller: Data curation, writing – review and editing, visualisation, project administration, statistical analysis; Julie C. Nienstedt: Review and editing; Almut Nießen: Writing – original draft, review and editing, data curation; Christina Pflug: Conceptualisation, resources, supervision, review and editing; Hans Pinnschmidt: Software, validation, formal analysis, statistical analysis, critical revision.

Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Achim Breitfuß, our audiologist, who tirelessly spots children with NOHL and treats them with our psychologists as well as to Gerid Gaumert, our retired psychologist, who initially started the research on NOHL in our department.

Disclosure statement

Authors declare no conflict of interest, and no source of funding.

Data availability statement

The data supporting the findings of this study are available on request to the corresponding author and will be stored at https://www.fdr.uni-hamburg.de/.