Saúde Auditiva Infantil: análise situacional da rede no Rio Grande do Norte

Abstract

Objective: To verify the neonatal hearing screening (NHS) coverage and analyze the referral flow of the different stages of the children's hearing health program in the health network of Rio Grande do Norte (RN). Methods: Cross-sectional exploratory study, with characterization of the study site and subdivided into stages: search for NHS recorded in the DATASUS database and search for live births, sending a questionnaire to establishments and professionals and active search for children after failure to NHS. Results: The RN has eight hearing health services, three of which are single modality and NHS coverage is not universal. There are access barriers in different locations in the state. Conclusion: there is a notorious difficulty in implementing NHS programs in the RN and in the articulation between the different levels of attention to children's hearing health, in addition to a noticeable difficulty in relation to transparency and access to data.