Views of Syrian Mothers in Ankara on Infant Hearing Loss: Cross-sectional Survey.

BACKGROUND

Mothers' awareness of hearing loss, its risk factors, and available detection and intervention choices have been well known to play an essential role in the early detection and intervention of hearing loss.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the knowledge and attitude of Syrian mothers toward infant hearing loss, early identification, and intervention.

METHODS

The "Maternal Views on Infant Hearing Loss" questionnaire was adapted and translated into Arabic and then administered to 100 Syrian mothers living in different neighborhoods in Ankara within the age range of 18-68 years old. The internal consistency for the main domains of the questionnaire was tested by Cronbach's alpha coefficient. Descriptive statistics and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient were used to evaluate the responses.

RESULTS

The highest level of knowledge about the risk factors was about noise exposure (76%), while the lowest level of knowledge was about jaundice (25%). While 98% of the mothers had a positive attitude toward early detection, 97% of them did not mind the early intervention.

CONCLUSIONS

The present findings showed the need to improve mothers' awareness about infant hearing loss risk factors, available detection, and intervention. Such results may help in performing programs that aim to increase awareness about hearing loss.