Assessment of Behavioral Problems in Children Pre- and Post-Cochlear Implant: An Egyptian Study

Abstract

Objective The present study aimed to detect the behavioral problems pre- and post-cochlear implantation in comparison to normal hearing group to be able to manage these problems to get more benefit from using cochlear implants.Methods A case-control study included 53 children was done. They were divided into 2 groups, the control group included 28 healthy volunteers with normal hearing and the case group included 25 children with severe to profound hearing loss, fitted for cochlear implantation. The Arabic Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) was used to detect different behavioral problems in both groups. Case group children were followed up and reassessed again by CBCL 3 months later after cochlear implantation.Results There were highly significant differences regarding total scores of internalizing and externalizing domains of empirically based CBCL between the control group and the case group after cochlear implants (p=0.001). There were non-significant differences in children within case group (pre- and post-cochlear implantation) regarding emotional and behavioral problems on both empirically based and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-based CBCL.Conclusion For better results, it is necessary to include a specialist of psychosomatic medicine in the cochlear rehabilitation teamwork.