Assessing audiological, pathophysiological and psychological variables in tinnitus patients with or without hearing loss

Abstract

The aim of this work is to study the characteristics of tinnitus both in normal hearing subjects and in patients with hearing loss. The study considered tinnitus sufferers, ranging from 21 to 83 years of age, who were referred to the Audiology Section of Palermo University in the years 2006-2008. The following parameters were considered: age, sex, hearing threshold, tinnitus laterality, tinnitus duration, tinnitus measurements and subjective disturbance caused by tinnitus. The sample was divided into Group1 (G1), 115 subjects with normal hearing, and Group2 (G2), 197 subjects with hearing loss. Especially for G2, there was a predominance of males compared to females (P = 0.011); the highest percentage of tinnitus resulted in the decades 61-70 and >70 with a significant difference for G2 demonstrating that the hearing status and the elderly represent the principal tinnitus-related factors (P < 0.0001). The hearing impairment resulted in most cases of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) type and was limited to the high frequencies; the 72.1% of the patients with SNHL had a high-pitched tinnitus, while the 88.4% of the patients with a high-frequency SNHL had a high-pitched tinnitus (P < 0.0001). As to the subjective discomfort, the catastrophic category was the most representative among G1 with a significant difference between the two groups; no correlation was found between the level of tinnitus intensity and the tinnitus annoyance confirming the possibility that tinnitus discomfort is elicited by a certain degree of psychological distress as anxiety, depression, irritability and phobias.

Audiologic profile of OSAS and simple snoring patients: the effect of chronic nocturnal intermittent hypoxia on auditory function

“…Acufenometry included pitch masking (matching the frequency of the tinnitus with a variety of stimuli) and loudness matching (estimating the loudness of tinnitus with a pure tone or noise); the difference between the hearing threshold and the sensation level was considered tinnitus loudness (0-5 dB, 5, 10, 15, [15 dB above the hearing threshold) [17][18][19][20].…”

Clinical observations and risk factors for tinnitus in a Sicilian cohort

“…Audiometric threshold was considered as the pure tone average for the frequencies 0.5-1-2-4 kHz (PTA 0.5-4 kHz ) and divided in: normal hearing (\20 dB); light hearing loss (21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40) TEOAE measurements were evaluated in reproducibility (expressed as the correlation between two waveforms, namely for responses stored in buffers A and B, acquired alternately) and were done using defined criteria as response detection in 4/5 different frequency bands (1, 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 kHz); a minimum signal-to-noise ratio (SNRs) of 6 dB for each frequency band was chosen. The instrument used was the 'SENTIERO by Path Medical GmbH', that is based on the nonlinear cross-correlation method (ILO88) of TEOAE recording.…”

“…This leads to a total score ranging from 0 (indicating no tinnitus handicap) to 100 (indicating the worst patients' annoyance). Classically it grades five categories of tinnitus severity: slight (0-16); mild (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36); moderate (38-56); severe (58-76); catastrophic (78-100).…”

Acceptance of Tinnitus: Validation of the Tinnitus Acceptance Questionnaire

“…Davis & El Refaie, 2000;Gopinath, McMahon et al, 2010;Pilgramm, Rychlick et al, 1999) In these severely suffering patients tinnitus has a substantial impact on quality of life (e.g., activity limitations, or participation restrictions) (Kennedy, Wilson, & Stephens, 2004). Moreover, distressing tinnitus is often associated with audiological dysfunctions such as hearing impairment and noise sensitivity (Dineen, Doyle, & Bench, 1997;Martines, Bentivegna, Martines, Sciacca, & Martinciglio, 2010), as well as with psychological problems such as depressive symptoms, anxiety, and sleep disturbances (Kuttila, Kuttila et al, 2005;Reynolds, Gardner, & Lee, 2004).…”