DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2014.v02i01.0041

Pages: 197-201

Over crowding, poor hygiene, socio-economic status, climate, lack of resources to avail medical facilities, poor medical awareness have their bearing on the incidence of hearing loss & there is relatively little evidence relating hearing loss to socio-economic status .The family of each hearing-impaired child has its own cultural, social, educational, and financial background, and its own special needs. The objective of our study was to explore the role and importance of socio-economic status and other demographic profiles among hearing impaired cases. The material for the present study were a representative sample constituting 1000 school children selected from various localities of Ghaziabad city within age group of 6-12 years. The children belonged to all the strata of society and children from both sexes were evaluated for hearing loss and its underlying etiological factors. Children were subjected to detailed ENT examination in our OPD. Statistical analysis indicated that maximum number of children with hearing loss were having below average socio-economic indices (60.22%) and least number of children were belonging to rich strata (8.60%).(31.18%) belonged to middle class strata. Also it was observed that 59.14% children were living in crowded localities of city & 40.86% were living in non- crowded/open locality which is again statistically significant (p< or =0.05). Low socio-economic status appears to have an important part to play in pre-disposition of disease. In our study a total of 56 patients (60.22 %) belonged to the low-socio economic strata. Our study also allowed us to conclude that children residing in congested homes were more prone to hearing deficits (about 59.14 %).