title: Intercontinental hearing assessment - a study in tele-audiology.
abstract: We evaluated the validity of remote pure tone audiometric testing conducted from North America on subjects in South Africa. Desktop-sharing computer software was used to control an audiometer in Pretoria from Dallas, and PC-based videoconferencing was employed for clinician and subject communication. Thirty adult subjects were assessed, and the pure tone audiometric thresholds (125-8000 Hz) obtained through conventional face-to-face and remote testing were compared. Face-to-face and remote audiometry thresholds differed by 10 dB in only 4% of cases overall. The limits of agreement between the two techniques were -8 and 7 dB with a 90% confidence interval of -5 to 5 dB. The average reaction times to stimulus presentations were similar, within -108 and 121 ms. The average test duration was 21% longer for remote testing (10.4 vs. 8.2 min). There were no clinically significant differences between the results obtained by remote intercontinental audiometric testing and conventional face-to-face audiometry. It may therefore be possible to expand the reach of audiological services into remote underserved regions of the world.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication Pathology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa. dewet.swanepoel@up.ac.za
authors.forename: De Wet
authors.initials: de W
authors.lastname: Swanepoel
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Koekemoer
authors.forename: Jackie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Clark
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001298:Audiology / Q000295:instrumentation; D001301:Audiometry, Pure-Tone / Q000295:instrumentation*; D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software; D013019:South Africa; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods*; D013781:Texas; D055815:Young Adult