Unexplained sudden sensorineural hearing loss in adolescent: a warning for functional hearing loss

Background Functional hearing loss refers to a type of hearing impairment that occurs without any identifiable organic damage to the auditory system. Most of the existing literature focuses on adults, with little attention given to the pediatric population. However, there is an increasing number of psychosomatic issues among children and adolescent, and dysthymic deafness in adolescent is not uncommon in clinical practice. Methods In our article, we presented 21 cases of functional hearing loss in adolescent treated in our center over the last 3 years. We summarized our experience in diagnosing and treating these cases to reduce diagnostic errors and improve the patients' quality of life. Results The study identifies academic stress (19.04%), Violence by parents or teachers (14.29%), interpersonal conflicts (4.76%), and mental health issues such as anxiety and depression (23.81%) as significant factors contributing to the development of functional hearing loss. Additionally, 47.62% of patients reported an unknown reason for their deafness. We found that 66.67% of dysthymic deafness was monaural, making it difficult to differentiate it from sudden deafness. It's important to note that in functional hearing loss, a history of sudden onset of hearing loss deserves attention, and the unusual mental demeanor of the patient may be helpful. Objective auditory examination should be carried out as early as possible for those patients with sudden unilateral deafness who were inconsistent on successive audiometric tests. Conclusions Accurate diagnosis and treatment are crucial for the prognosis of patients. For childhood dysthymic disorders, timely and effective psychotherapy often leads to a better prognosis, which requires a well-established multidisciplinary cooperation mechanism.