title: The Impact of Clinical History on the Threshold Estimation of Auditory Brainstem Response Results for Infants.
abstract: This study assesses the impact of patient clinical history on audiologists' performance when interpreting auditory brainstem response (ABR) results.
  
  
  
  Fourteen audiologists' accuracy in estimating hearing threshold for 16 infants through interpretation of ABR traces was compared on 2 occasions at least 5 months apart. On the 1st occasion, ABR traces were presented to the audiologists with no clinical information except for the age of the child. On the 2nd occasion, audiologists were given a full clinical history for the ABR cases.
  
  
  
  The addition of clinical history information had no statistically significant impact on sensitivity, specificity, or accuracy of diagnosis. Although the mean numbers of true-negative and true-positive diagnoses were higher when audiologists were given clinical information, the difference was again not statistically significant.
  
  
  
  This study suggests that if there are circumstances in which case material is incomplete or unavailable, audiologists have no cause for concern regarding the accuracy of their interpretation of ABR traces. In a clinical manner, this may help audiologists with large caseloads or audiologists who need to provide a diagnosis of hearing loss in a short time by allowing them to focus on conducting ABR without the need for case history information.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, AustraliaJordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
authors.forename: Maha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Zaitoun
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cumming
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Purcell
authors.affiliation: Department of Audiology, Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: Katie
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: O'Brien
mesh_terms: D001309:Auditory Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D034381:Hearing Loss / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity