Short Term Test-Retest Reliability of Contralateral Inhibition of Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions

Abstract

Background and ObjectivesStrength of medial olivocochlear reflex can be measured reliably using contralateral inhibition of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) when its fine structure is considered. However, measurement of fine structure of DPOAE is difficult with clinical equipment. Thus, this study investigated the clinically relevant test-retest reliability of contralateral inhibition of DPOAEs.Subjects and MethodsTwenty-six young adults with normal hearing sensitivity participated. DPOAEs were recorded at 27 discrete f2 frequencies between 800 Hz and 8,000 Hz at frequency resolution of 8 points per octave with and without contralateral white noise presented at 50 dB SPL. To check for short term inter-session reliability, contralateral inhibition of DPOAEs were recorded in three sessions, two recording sessions on first day separated by 30 minutes and third time after one week of the first session. Within each session, DPOAEs were recorded twice in single probe-fit condition to test for intra-session reliability.ResultsCronbach’s alpha was calculated having poor reliability (α≤ 0.7) of contralateral inhibition of DPOAEs in both intra-session and inter-session conditions for most of the tested frequencies. 95% confidence intervals of contralateral inhibition magnitude also showed large variability.ConclusionsThe current results showed that though DPOAE amplitudes were highly reliable across sessions, amount of inhibition of DPOAEs was not reliable when DPOAEs were measured at discrete frequencies. These findings are concurrent with the literature.

Correlation and Reliability of Behavioral and Otoacoustic-Emission Estimates of Contralateral Medial Olivocochlear Reflex Strength in Humans

“… Stuart and Cobb (2015) reported a Cronbach’s alpha greater than 0.8, and Mertes and Goodman (2016) reported a Cronbach’s alpha greater than 0.95. Kumar et al (2012) and Kalaiah et al (2018) , however, reported a mean (across frequency) intra-session Cronbach’s alpha for DPOAEs of 0.5 and 0.3, respectively. It is unclear why reliability of the CAS effect was lower for DPOAEs than for CEOAEs.…”

“…It is unclear why reliability of the CAS effect was lower for DPOAEs than for CEOAEs. Kumar et al (2012) and Kalaiah et al (2018) proposed that attentional status might have contributed to the low test–retest reliability of DPOAEs. We, however, measured CEOAEs and DPOAEs in the same participants, and there is no reason to think that attentional status was more variable when measuring DPOAEs than CEOAEs.…”

Reliability of Contralateral Suppression in Evoked Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emissions

“…Kumar et al ( 2013) 12 and Kalaiah et al (2018) 5 found low test-retest reliability in the contralateral stimulation of the DPOAE. They attributed this result to the large confidence intervals for the DPOAE inhibition magnitude, 5,12,14 the attentional state of the participant during the contralateral acoustic stimulation, 5 and the fine structure measurements.…”

“…5,[11][12][13][14] Studies 5,12, [14][15][16][17] indicate that it is important to investigate the DPOAE amplitude test-retest repeatability, as it is a noninvasive technique that makes it possible to identify differences between the measurement of deviations and true changes, either physiological or pathological, in the auditory monitoring over time. 5,12 The record of the DPOAE with suppression effect has proved to have great applicability in clinical practice to detect cochlear changes in people exposed to noise or those who suffered some sort of acoustic trauma, 2,18 and whose auditory thresholds found in the pure-tone threshold audiometry (gold standard examination to detect hearing loss) are within normality standards.…”

Impacto do treinamento auditivo com atividades de escuta no ruído na inibição eferente das emissões otoacústicas de escolares

“…A organização da discussão foi realizada seguindo os critérios utilizados nos resultados. Vários fatores, como níveis de ruído ambiente, mudanças no status auditivo e alterações no status da orelha média, podem afetar a pesquisa do efeito inibitório (Kalaiah et al, 2018). A fim de se minimizar quaisquer influências ambientais, a coleta das EOA e a pesquisa do EIVE da presente pesquisa foi realizada dentro de cabine acústica.…”