Prevalence of Single-Sided Deafness in a Tertiary Healthcare Hospital in Mumbai

Purpose: The current study was taken up to estimate the prevalence of Single Sided Deafness (SSD) in a tertiary healthcare hospital in Mumbai. Also to determine the acceptance of Contralateral routing of offside signal (CROS) devices by individuals with SSD. Method: A retrospective study design was followed to collect data from September 2020 to September 2022. The data were collected by reviewing the files of the cases diagnosed with Single-Sided Deafness in a tertiary health care hospital in Mumbai. Result: The prevalence of SSD was found to be 24% for the given period. It was observed that 50 out of 4456 took a free trial and 2 bought the device. Conclusion: The poor acceptance and purchase of CROS are attributed to the cost, and missed benefits of true binaural hearing in localization and hearing in noise. These benefits can be achieved by using CI, however, the cost and fear of surgery refrained the participants. Also, participants were observed to learn great use of communication repair strategies. Therefore, it is required to counsel individuals with SSD for CI and provide knowledge about care for the better with regular audiological follow-up.