The Correlation of Results between Pure Tone Audiometry and the Virtual Audiometer: A Simulated Air-Conduction Clinic-based Audiometer

Methods: Analytic, cross-sectional study set in a Philippine tertiary institution. Subjects were recruited from the outpatient department in September 2005 and comprised of cooperative, clinically normal and abnormal hearing individuals. Thirty-two subjects made 64 total ears tested (n=64), giving 0.90 correlation at 0.05 level of significance (α) (p = 0.05) and 99% power. Each subject underwent pure tone and virtual audiometry, the average thresholds calculated, and degree of hearing loss categorized according to classification by the World Health Organization (WHO). Results were not revealed until both examinations were completed. Data were stratified by frequency and compared by Pearson’s correlation, while Kappa statistics determined degree of agreement between WHO grades of hearing impairment.