Use of open-ended questionnaires to examine the effects of tinnitus and its relation to patient-reported outcome measures

Abstract

Objective

The primary aim of the study was to examine the automated linguistic analysis of the open-ended problem (PQ) and life-effects (LEQ) questionnaires to understand the psychological effects of tinnitus.

Design

The study used a cross-sectional design. Participants completed online questionnaires which included demographic questions, several standardised patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs), and two open-ended questions focussing on PQ and LEQ related to tinnitus. The response to open-ended questions was analysed using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count (LIWC) software to identify the frequency of text on various linguistic dimensions relevant to tinnitus.

Study sample

336 individuals with tinnitus.

Results

The study results point to two broad findings. First, although PQ and LEQ have some similarities with PROMs (e.g. the linguistic dimension negative emotions having a weak positive correlation with anxiety and depression), no correlation with the number of dimensions suggests that the open-ended questions identify additional elements that are not captured in PROMs. Second, more linguistic dimensions from the PQ correlate with PROMs compared to LEQ suggesting that the current PROMs are problem-oriented.

Conclusions

The study results support the idea that the use of open-ended questions in addition to PROMs may help optimise the efforts in examining the effects of chronic conditions such as tinnitus.

Keywords:

• Tinnitus
• patient-reported outcome measures
• open-ended questions
• natural language processing
• text analysis
• linguistic analysis
• core outcome set

Acknowledgements

The authors like to acknowledge Dr. Hansapani Rodrigo for help with statistical analysis. The authors also like to acknowledge late Prof. Dafydd Stephens who motivated the clinicians and researchers to use the problem and life-effects open-ended questions to gather patient perspectives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Figshare at http://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13681924.

Additional information

Funding

This work is partly funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Communication Disorders (NIDCD) of the National Institute of Health (NIH) under the award number R21DC017214.