Lifetime leisure music exposure associated with increased frequency of tinnitus

Abstract

Tinnitus has been linked to noise exposure, a common form of which is listening to music as a leisure activity. The relationship between tinnitus and type and duration of music exposure is not well understood. We conducted an internet-based population study that asked participants questions about lifetime music exposure and hearing, and included a hearing test involving speech intelligibility in noise, the High Frequency Digit Triplets Test. 4950 people aged 17–75 years completed all questions and the hearing test. Results were analyzed using multinomial regression models. High exposure to leisure music, hearing difficulty, increasing age and workplace noise exposure were independently associated with increased tinnitus. Three forms of music exposure (pubs/clubs, concerts, personal music players) did not differ in their relationship to tinnitus. More males than females reported tinnitus. The objective measure of speech reception threshold had only a minimal relationship with tinnitus. Self-reported hearing difficulty was more strongly associated with tinnitus, but 76% of people reporting usual or constant tinnitus also reported little or no hearing difficulty. Overall, around 40% of participants of all ages reported never experiencing tinnitus, while 29% reported sometimes, usually or constantly experiencing tinnitus that lasted more than 5 min. Together, the results suggest that tinnitus is much more common than hearing loss, but that there is little association between the two, especially among the younger adults disproportionately sampled in this study.

Effects of Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Noise Exposure on Tinnitus Occurrence in College Students and Adolescents

“…A few other current results are interesting. First, the current prevalence of tinnitus in college students and adolescents was 40%, much higher than past reports (Davis and El Refaie, 2000; 4 Muhr and Rosenhall, 2010; 14 Moore et al, 2016 13 ) but similar to recent reports (Bhatt, 2017; 2 Hinalaf et al, 2017 7 ) where 64% and 59.3% of college students reported occurrence of tinnitus, respectively. Overall, although the current results and these past studies did not all have the same design, the reported tinnitus prevalence of 40-64% indicates that many younger adults and adolescents appear to be susceptible to tinnitus than previously believed.…”

“…Several other variables, including age, gender, socioeconomic status, occupation, smoking, and alcohol, are related to the prevalence of tinnitus (Davis and El Refaie, 2000 4 ). In addition, other factors, including excessive noise, have been studied thoroughly and are well known to be associated with tinnitus (Moore et al, 2016; 13 Bhatt, 2017 2 ).…”

Hearing in Adults: A Digital Reprint of the Main Report From the MRC National Study of Hearing

“…The noise immission rating, a systematic questionnaire developed by Coles and Lutman, was the basis for quantifying lifetime noise exposure retrospectively in the NSH. The question of how best to determine post hoc lifetime noise exposure remains a topic of current development (e.g., Guest et al, 2018;Lutman, Davis, & Ferguson, 2008;Moore, Zobaym, Mackinnon, Whitmer, & Akeroyd, 2017).…”

The Noise Exposure Structured Interview (NESI): An Instrument for the Comprehensive Estimation of Lifetime Noise Exposure

“…One solution, utilized by Yeend et al. (2017) and Moore et al. (2017) , is to segment the lifespan into decades and assess noise exposure habits in each.…”

“…Three basic approaches to the quantification of sound level are employed in existing self-report measures of noise exposure: No consideration of sound level; all exposure activities are weighted equally (e.g., Liberman et al., 2016; Moore et al., 2017 ). Sound level is estimated for each exposure activity using databases of sound level measurements (e.g., Bramhall et al., 2017 ; Johnson et al., 2017 ; Yeend et al., 2017 ).…”