A comparison of the severity of tinnitus in patients with and without hearing loss using the tinnitus functional index (TFI)

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to compare the severity of tinnitus in tinnitus patients with and without hearing loss.

Design and study sample

73 tinnitus patients were included in this study at an audiology clinic in Amman, Jordan. Participants were assigned to two groups according to their hearing status. The severity of tinnitus was evaluated using the Tinnitus Functional Index questionnaire. All participants were interviewed, followed by an otoscopic examination, pure tone audiometry, and tests for admittance and tinnitus matching.

Results

The normal hearing group included 34 participants (46.6%) whose TFI scores were divided as follows: mild annoyance (17), significant annoyance (14), and severe annoyance (3). The sensorineural loss group included 39 participants (53.4%) with mild annoyance (11), significant annoyance (12), and severe annoyance (16). A statistically significant association was found between hearing status and the severity of tinnitus using a Chi-Squared test (x² = 0.487, p = 0.007). There was no association between tinnitus severity and age or gender.

Conclusion

Tinnitus severity was significantly worse in tinnitus patients with a hearing loss than tinnitus patients with normal hearing thresholds. This should be taken into consideration when clinicians are planning counselling and management protocols for individual patients.

Keywords:

• Tinnitus Functional Index Questionnaire (TFI)
• severity
• hearing loss
• normal hearing threshold

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and Associate Editor Professor Ali Danesh for their helpful suggestions. The authors gratefully acknowledge Professor Tareq Mahafza, Drs. Marina Mahafza and Tareq Khrais for their excellent support with research design and statistical analyses. We would also like to acknowledge Dr Christopher Wigham for his proof reading.The authors acknowlegde with gratitude Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) for providing theTFI Questionnaire in the Arabic language version used in this study.

Disclosure statement

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