What is indicated if the patient hears the tuning fork longer than the examiner during the Schwabach test?

In the Schwabach test, the tuning fork is placed on the patient's mastoid process to assess their bone conduction hearing compared to that of the examiner. If the patient hears the tuning fork for a longer duration than the examiner, this suggests conductive hearing loss.

Conductive hearing loss occurs when there is an obstruction or damage in the outer or middle ear that prevents sound from being conducted to the inner ear. In this situation, the patient's hearing pathway could be less effective than the examiner's, leading to the patient hearing the tuning fork longer, as they may perceive the sound more effectively due to it being transmitted directly via bone conduction, which bypasses the outer and middle ear issues.

Knowing that other test results like tympanometry would be necessary for diagnosing conditions related to the middle ear, and that normal auditory function and sensorineural loss will present differently in this test context, the patient's prolonged hearing of the tuning fork points definitively toward conductive hearing loss.