Journal of AdvancedMedical and Dental Sciences Research

Background: In the today’s scenario, hearing impairment is reported to be increasing rapidly globally, becoming the most frequent sensory deficit among humans. The prevalence of moderate to severe hearing loss in India is reported to be 6.3 per cent. Although most of these illnesses are self-limiting, inappropriate management combined with poor socioeconomic environment in developing countries leads to various complications. Hence; we evaluated the frequency and type of ear diseases in children of low socioeconomic status in comparison to the children belonging to the higher strata of society. Materials & methods: The present study was conducted in the department of paediatrics of the institution and included all the paediatric patients that were surveyed from June 2012 to July 2015.  All the patients were divided into two study groups. First group i.e. group 1 included children of government schools while group 2 included patients of the private schools. Only children with age group of 5–12 years were included while any child whose parent was not willing for him or her to be a part of the study was excluded. Initial screening was conducted with the help of a simple questionnaire. This was to be filled in by the parent of the child. All the data were tabulated and analyzed using chi-square test. Result: A total of 6000 school children were assessed. Otomycosis was found in 18 children from group 1, whereas only one child in group 2 was found to be suffering from this condition. The p value was calculated as, 0.005, so the difference was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: Out of the several possible suggested hypotheses which cause ear problems, poverty is one of them.
Key words: Children, Ear diseases, Otitis

Corresponding Author: Dr Sanjay Agrawal, Associate Professor, Department of ENT, CCM Medical College Kachandur Durg

This article may be cited as: Agrawal S, Dabhekar S. Assessment of ear diseases in children of higher and lower socioeconomic status: A comparative study. J Adv Med Dent Scie Res 2016;4(5):104-106.