The correlation between the hyperacusis questionnaire and uncomfortable loudness levels is dependent on emotional exhaustion

Abstract

Objective: To validate the hyperacusis questionnaire (HQ) in different strata of emotional exhaustion (EE). Design: HQ-scores and uncomfortable loudness levels (ULLs) were assessed in 348 individuals (140 men and 208 women) with low, intermediate, and high EE-levels. Results: Four individuals (1.1%) met the critical value for hyperacusis according to the HQ. An exploratory factor analysis extracted three factors from the HQ accounting for 57.6% of the variance. Internal consistency was acceptable for all subscales and for the total score, with Crohnbach's alpha ranging from 0.65 to 0.86. When controlling for hearing loss, significant correlations between the HQ and ULLs were found on both ears in those with intermediate (right: −0.328; left: −0.320) and high EE (right: −0.349; left: −0.393), but not with low EE (right: −0.204; left: −0.196). All correlations were negative, indicating that higher HQ-scores are correlated with lower ULLs. The strongest correlations were found for the social dimension, indicating that social aspects may correspond best to audiological parameters (ULLs) of hyperacusis. Conclusions: The results emphasize the need to take other factors, such as emotional exhaustion (long-term stress), into consideration when assessing hyperacusis with a questionnaire.

Key Words::

• Emotional exhaustion
• hyperacusis
• hypersensitivity to sound
• questionnaire
• sound
• stress
• uncomfortable loudness level

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Mahsa Pourheidari and Daniel Zand at Avesina AB for providing the clinical facilities for the study. We also wish to thank the participants of the Swedish Longitudinal Survey of Health (SLOSH) study, and the entire technical staff involved in the project: Agneta Viberg, Susanna Benka, Satu Turunen-Taheri, Renata Bogo, Ching Huang, Aram Hellstadius, Anders Sj strand, Anne-Marie Jakobsson, Elin Ljungkvist, Emmanuel Galaup, and Dr Walter Osika for active involvement in the study. Funding for the study was provided by the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS). DH is supported by a grant from the FAS Centre for Research on Hearing Problems in Working Life and Tysta Skolan. BC is supported by the Swedish Research Council, FAS, the Karolinska Institute, and Tysta Skolan. MBW is supported by the FAS Centre for Research on Hearing Problems in Working Life.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.