[Summary of the practice guideline 'Hearing impairment' (first revision) from the Dutch College of General Practitioners].
The Dutch College of General Practitioners recently issued a revised version of the practice guideline 'Hearing impairment'. The modification of the screening for hearing impairment, which now takes place in neonates, has resulted in a much lower number of false-positive diagnoses of perceptive hearing loss than under the previous version of the practice guideline. The expanded diagnostic possibilities for adults, whether or not implemented by the patients themselves, demand an active approach from the general practitioner towards patients with impaired hearing. This guideline helps general practitioners to select patients that will truly benefit from a hearing aid and that will also be more likely to use one. The general practitioner can play an important role by stimulating patients to be referred for a hearing aid.
Boomsma
L J
LJ
Nederlands Huisartsen Genootschap, afd. Richtlijnontwikkeling en Wetenschap, Postbus 3231, 3502 GE Utrecht. l.boomsma@nhg-nl.org
Eekhof
J A H
JA
Wiersma
T
T
Goudswaard
A N
AN
D005194:Family Practice / Q000592:standards*; D006310:Hearing Aids; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008403:Mass Screening; D009426:Netherlands; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'