Received patient referrals, study prescriptions and audiological results obtained in the Raquel Maurette’s Department, Córdoba, Argentina, period of 2018.

Abstract

Hearing plays an essential role in the communicative competency of each individual. Auditory testing allows adults to reach a proper diagnosis and treatment while in children allows to make an early diagnosis so that language development is not negatively influence. Hence the importance of implementing an adequate interaction between who prescribe, what he or she prescribes and the audiological study results.

The purpose of this study was to describe the source of accepted patient referrals, the audiological study prescriptions and their results in the Audiology sector of the Raquel Maurette’s Department, School of Speech Therapy from the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, for the time period of June to November, 2018.

A descriptive, observational, cross-sectional study was conducted through a documentary analysis of medical orders, medical records and the results of studies carried out according to whether they are conduction hearing loss, sensorineural problems or normal hearing. The number of subjects was 138 between the ages of 3 and 80 who performed audiological studies in the Raquel Maurette’s Department. The variables to be characterize were: received patient referrals, requested studies and types of hearing impairment. Previously tconducting of the studies, patients signed a informed consent to use their information in the research.

For the most part, the received patient referrals were performed by ENT specialists (68%). The referring institutions from the public sector were 71%, private 21%, and internal 8%. The requested studies were: audiometry, speech audiometry and impedanceometry. The audiological results obtained corresponded to conductive hearing loss were 21, 73%, sensorineuralhearing loss 16, 66%, and normal hearing 61, 59%.

With this study, we emphasize the importance of patient referring from the treating doctor to the speech therapist specialist, who after looking into the medical record and testing the patient to give an audiological diagnosis responds the requestor for his or her treatment and/or rehabilitation.