Psychometric evaluation of the tinnitus impact questionnaire using patients seeking help for tinnitus or tinnitus with hyperacusis

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Tinnitus Impact Questionnaire (TIQ), whose questions focus on assessing the impact of tinnitus on the patient’s day to day activities, mood, and sleep, and not on hearing difficulties.

Design

This was a retrospective cross-sectional study.

Study sample

Data were included for 172 adult patients who attended a tinnitus and hyperacusis clinic in the UK within a six-month period and who had completed the TIQ.

Results

Two items whose scores were very highly correlated with those for other items were removed, leaving seven items. Exploratory factor analysis suggested a single factor for the TIQ. A multiple causes multiple indicator model showed significant but very small direct effects of age on TIQ scores for two items, after adjustment for gender. The TIQ had excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach’s alpha = 0.89. The total TIQ score was moderately to strongly correlated with scores for the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, Screening for Anxiety and Depression-Tinnitus questionnaire, Hyperacusis Questionnaire, and Hyperacusis Impact Questionnaire, indicating convergent validity. The TIQ score was weakly correlated with the pure-tone average hearing threshold, indicating discriminant validity.

Conclusions

The TIQ is a brief, valid and internally consistent questionnaire for assessing the impact of tinnitus.

Keywords:

• Tinnitus
• hyperacusis
• psychometry
• questionnaire
• outcome measure

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the members of the THTSC at the RSFT, Guildford, UK, for their help in data collection. The authors also thank three reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

S.V. and C.H. were funded or partially funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London. The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR, or the Department of Health and Social Care.