An audit of the Speech Therapy and Audiology Department at a district hospital in Gauteng

Abstract

Background. Children require speech and language to communicate adequately and to participate in daily activities and in society. Speech and language delays may have far- reaching consequences on a child’s development. Objectives. To audit the referrals of children less than six years of age referred to a speech therapy and audiology department at a district-level hospital in Gauteng, South Africa. Methods. A retrospective audit of children aged below six years referred to the outpatient Speech Therapy and Audiology (STA) Department from 01st January 2021 to 30th June 2022 was conducted. Mean and standard deviation (SD) were used for normally distributed continuous variables and median and interquartile range (IQR) for skewed variables. Categorical data were analysed using the Chi-squared and Fishers exact test. Results. One hundred and fifty outpatient referrals were reviewed, of which 94 (62.7%) were males. Speech delay was the most common reason for referral (38%). Of the children seen by the speech therapists and audiologists, 24 (20.3%) children were discharged and 58 (49.2%) defaulted follow-up. One hundred and two children had auditory screening and three children (2.5%) were identified with hearing loss. Twenty-eight children (23.7%) were referred for neurodevelopmental assessments. Conclusions. This audit provided insight into the disease profile of children referred to a STA department at a district level one hospital. It highlighted the demographics of children referred to a district hospital, further emphasising the importance of early identification, referral and intervention of children with speech and language delay and hearing loss. The high number of children lost to follow-up motivates for more research be done to identify the reasons for these findings.