Management of conductive deafness from Otitis Media with Effusion (known as ‘glue ear’) in children using bone conduction headsets when grommet operations were unavailable during COVID-19

  1. T Holland Brown
  2. Isobel Fitzgerlad O’Connor
  3. Jessica Bewick
  4. Colin Morley

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Abstract

Background

Otitis Media with Effusion (OME) causing hearing impairments affects ∼1 in 10 children starting school in UK/ Europe. 80% have at least one episode with most having conductive hearing loss. Studies showed children with OME hear better with bone conducting headsets. During COVID-19 we investigated whether children with deafness secondary OME, without access to audiology or grommet surgery, could be aided with bone conduction kits and the HearGlueEar app.

Methods

Starting July 2020, during COVID-19, children aged 3-11 years with OME and on a grommet waiting list were invited to a single arm, prospective study. They received the kit, instructions and HearGlueEar app by post. By 3 weeks parents were asked to charge and pair the devices, attend a remote consultation and complete an OMQ-14 questionnaire. Remote follow-up lasted 3 months. Outcomes: ability to use the equipment, complete the questionnaire about child’s hearing and behaviour before and with the equipment, declining grommet surgery or where deafness resolved, and give opinion about the intervention.

Findings

26 children enrolled. Families used the kit at home and school. Most found remote consultations positive and convenient. OMQ-14 responses were 90% positive. Comments were: “Other people have said, wow his speech is clearer.”, “It is making a real difference at home.”, “He said over and over again, “I can hear everybody, wow, wow, wow.”, “It is no exaggeration to say this has made an astronomical improvement to his quality of life”. One child reported “I can hear my best friend again”. “She is getting on really well with the headphones - pairing them with the iPad at home is simply brilliant.” Three families continued with the headset to avoid grommets.

Interpretation

Posting a bone conduction kit, HearGlueEar app and remote consultation is effective support for children with deafness secondary to OME.

Funding

None

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.21.21249496: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:

    IdentifierStatusTitle
    NCT04427631Not yet recruitingExploring Interventions for Glue Ear During Covid-19

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.01.21.21249496v1 on medRxiv