@article{Dutra_Cavalcanti_Ferreira_2022, title={Access to pediatric hearing healthcare in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil}, volume={48}, url={https://portalnepas.org.br/abcshs/article/view/1798}, DOI={10.7322/abcshs.2021063.1798}, abstractNote={<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> Hearing impairment compromises the child’s language development and learning process. Neonatal screening, diagnosis, and hearing intervention are actions that must be carried out for comprehensive hearing healthcare in childhood. <strong>Objective:</strong> To assess access to children’s hearing healthcare services and the factors that influence access. <strong>Methods:</strong> Cross-sectional study with 104 children who underwent neonatal hearing screening and were referred for diagnosis. The sources were the databases, where demographic, social, and variables related to the access and use of health services were collected. Percentage distribution of categorical variables and measures of central tendency and dispersion of continuous variables were performed. To assess the association of dependent and independent variables, the Chi-square test was used with a 5% significance level. <strong>Results:</strong> Only 56 (53.3%) of screened children attended hearing healthcare services. Of these, 41 went to the studied service, and 24 completed the diagnosis. Three children had hearing loss and were candidates for cochlear implants. The mean age at diagnosis was 211 days and the standard deviation was 155.9 days. The duration of diagnosis was 135 days and the standard deviation was 143.2 days. There was no statistical significance between access to health services and the distance of the service, age, and education of the mother. <strong>Conclusion:</strong> There is a lack of access to the service and completion of the diagnosis and children are not assisted at appropriate ages. The mother’s age and education and distance to the service did not influence access to and use of the service.</p>}, journal={ABCS Health Sciences}, author={Dutra, Monique Ramos Paschoal and Cavalcanti, Hannalice Gottschalck and Ferreira, Maria Ângela Fernandes}, year={2022}, month={Nov.}, pages={e023205} }