Parents' Experience of Universal Neonatal Hearing Screening: A Critical Review of the Literature and Its Implications for the Implementation of New UNHS Programs

Abstract

This article presents a critical review of literature reporting the effects on parents of universal neonatal hearing screening (UNHS). It explores how parents experience the process and outcome of screening and in particular focuses on debates surrounding false positive identification, the evidence base for maternal/parental anxiety, consent, and family cultural/sociodemographic influences on the effective implementation of UNHS programs. These issues are then set within the context of events in the United Kingdom, where the Department of Health has recently initiated a program to pilot the introduction of universal neonatal hearing screening at 20 sites in England.