information on neonatal hearing screening from pregnant women of different social classes

Objective: To verify how well pregnant women and mothers users of public and private healthcare know about neonatal hearing screening (NHS), and also to verify behaviors related to such knowledge. Methods: Eighty-seven pregnant women were interviewed during prenatal medical care at a Primary Healthcare Unit (Group A) and 83 pregnant women under prenatal medical care at a private practice. A questionnaire was applied to investigate whether the studied sample was aware of NHS and, in case of a positive answer, they were asked about its purposes. They were also questioned on how they found out about the test, which children should be tested and, in case they already had children, it was asked if those children had also been tested (if not, for what reason). Moreover, they were asked about where NHS can be performed in the city of Santa Maria (RS, Brazil). Rresults: It was verified that none of the 87 pregnant women from Group A knew about NHS. Of the 83 pregnant women of Group B, only 13.25% (n = 11) had previous information on NHS; ten of them knew the purpose of the test; eight were able to tell its target-population; four knew where NHS could be performed in Santa Maria and nine said none of their children had been tested. Cconclusions: It is concluded that, regardless of social class, the pregnant women studied did not have enough information about NHS, which could compromise communication of their children. We suggest a systematic NHS campaign within both public and private healthcare networks.