Role of parental socio-educational factors on prevalence of paediatric otological disorders

Abstract

<p class="abstract"><strong>Background:</strong> Parental socioeconomic status, often designated by education and occupation is likely to have significant implications in children’s otological health. Hence the present school screening study was formulated in an attempt to establish the role of these factors on the prevalence of various ear diseases and related hearing impairment in children.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Methods:</strong> A total of 346 lower primary school children, in the age group of 5-10 years were included in this cross sectional study.<strong> </strong>Details pertaining to the socioeconomic background of children were collected by questionnaire method. All children were initially evaluated by otoscopy and tuning fork testing and those having equivocal or abnormal tuning fork test results were subjected to pure tone audiometry and tympanometry. </p><p class="abstract"><strong>Results:</strong> There was significantly higher prevalence of hearing impairment among children of mothers with lower maternal educational status (13.2% versus 6.3%, (p=0.04, Odds ratio (95% CI) 2.27 (1.004-5.13)). Normal ear findings were noticed significantly higher among children with higher paternal (62.3% versus 47.7%) and maternal (59.1% versus 45.7%) educational status.</p><p class="abstract"><strong>Conclusions:</strong> Favourable parental socio-educational factors, especially maternal education have a significant positive impact on children’s otological health.</p><p> </p>