Parents to assess children’s ear infections at home in Ostrobothnia
Tuesday 1st September 2026 on 16:15 in
Finland
A study at Vaasa Central Hospital will test whether parents can photograph their children’s eardrums at home, potentially reducing unnecessary doctor visits for suspected acute ear infections, Yle reports.
The Parent ear study will recruit 40 children aged one to three who have had at least one doctor-diagnosed ear infection in the past year. Registration begins on September 1.
Half of the participating families will receive a digital otoscope, along with training in using the device and interpreting images of the eardrum. Twenty eligible children will be randomly assigned to each study group.
When a parent suspects an ear infection, they can photograph the child’s eardrum at home, assess the situation based on their training and decide whether a medical assessment is needed.
Acute middle-ear infection is a significant cause of doctor visits and antibiotic use among young children. The diagnosis is made by examining the eardrum, and the condition can be reliably ruled out using photographs of the eardrum.
The photographs and videos will also be analysed retrospectively by an artificial intelligence classifier and compared with an expert panel’s assessment.
The study will examine whether the method can reduce unnecessary emergency visits and give parents better tools to assess their child’s condition.
“For the first time, the ability to examine the eardrum is being brought into families’ everyday lives,” said Simo Nuuttila, a doctoral researcher and licensed physician specialising in paediatrics, in a statement from the Wellbeing Services County of Ostrobothnia.
If the results are promising, home-based eardrum imaging by parents could become part of the treatment pathway for ear infections, Nuuttila said.
The participating families must speak good Finnish, or at least the parent taking part with the child must do so. Children who have ear tubes or other exclusion factors cannot participate.
Follow-up will last between five and nine months, depending on the family, and will end in May 2027. The study is being conducted at Vaasa Central Hospital.