Results
Thirty patients met the inclusion criteria and were recruited, of
whom five were excluded for incomplete testing (unrelated to
the device or software). Twenty-five patients were therefore fully
tested (50 ears in total). Participants’ demographics are described
in Table 2.
Accuracy of the iPhone uHear as a screening test. All ears with
moderate or worse hearing loss (PTA >40 dB) were detected in all
three settings. This translated to a sensitivity of 100%. Of the 42
ears without moderate or worse hearing loss (PTA ≤40 dB), 15 had
moderate or worse hearing in the WR (specificity 64%), 11 had
moderate or worse hearing in the QR (specificity 74%), and 5 had
moderate or worse hearing loss in the SR (specificity 88%) (Table 3).
Accuracy in the WR was calculated as 70%, that in the QR as 78% and
that in the SR as 90%.
Accuracy of the iPhone uHear thresholds at all six frequencies.
Kappa analysis compared the ‘agreement’ of the iPhone thresholds
in all three rooms with the formal audiogram thresholds as reflected
in Table 4. The iPhone was highly accurate at the high frequencies
(2 000, 4 000 and 6 000 Hz), where there was ‘good’ and ‘very
good’ correlation in the SR and QR (Table 4). This was found to be
statistically significant (p