Are Most Patients Screened for Hearing Loss?
There is substantial evidence that most patients are not screened for hearing loss using any method.19 The reasons for this lack of screening are probably multifactorial and include the usual difficulties of adding screening to an acute-care patient visit along with a lack of organizational structure to facilitate screening, such as reminder systems. For screening for hearing loss to become the rule rather than the exception, novel strategies should be explored to make screening a feasible part of routine care. For example, patients could fill out a screening questionnaire in the waiting room. Alternatively, nonphysician personnel can easily be trained to use an audioscope to screen for hearing loss while patients wait for the physician. How Should the Physician Screen for Hearing Loss? Simply asking about hearing loss would be helpful. However, as with patient 1, some patients may be reluctant to admit to hearing loss, or may not yet notice it themselves, even when spouses, family, an
