Abstract
Background: Tinnitus is the perception of sound without an external stimulus. A large part of the adult population experiences this symptom but never seeks professional help, where others have devastating complaints in daily life. This suggests that the impact of tinnitus varies among patients and may be influenced by coping strategies and multiple psychological factors.Method: Cross- sectional study of patients visiting the tertiary tinnitus referral center of the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. Three hundred and twenty-one consecutive chronic tinnitus patients were evaluated by the tinnitus care group Utrecht from 6–2007 till 11–2012 of which 308 patients were included. Patients completed two tinnitus distress questionnaires (THI, TQ), a coping questionnaire (CISS) as well as a psychopathological questionnaire (SCL-90-R).Results: Emotional-orientated coping and distraction-orientated coping strategies were significantly correlated with the experienced tinnitus burden. Also a significant negative correlation with task orientated coping was found. The effect size was small. Tinnitus distress also had a significant positive correlation with anxiety, agoraphobia, depression, insufficiency of handling, distrust & personal sensitivity, hostility and sleeping problems.Conclusion: Patients with higher tinnitus handicap scores demonstrated the use different coping strategies than the patients with lower distress scores. This insight in coping strategies in a group of patients with high tinnitus burden is useful for counseling patients. As tinnitus coping strategy might be related to the extent and success of habituation, this outcome could be of interest to optimize tinnitus treatments in the near future.
Highlights
Tinnitus is the perception of sound or noise without the existence of an external acoustic stimulus (1, 2)
Missing data was present in several questionnaires; Tinnitus Handicap inventory (THI): 5/308, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situation (CISS): 23/308, Symptom CheckList-90 Revised (SCL-90R): 22/308
Significant, positive correlations were found between tinnitus handicap and “anxiety,” “agoraphobia,” “depression,” “insufficiency of handling,” “distrust & personal sensitivity,” “hostility,” and “sleep problems” for both the THI and Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ) outcomes (Table 2.3). In this cross-sectional study we investigated the correlation between perceived tinnitus burden, used coping strategies and psychopathological characteristics in chronic tinnitus patients visiting a tertiary tinnitus clinic
Summary
Tinnitus is the perception of sound or noise without the existence of an external acoustic stimulus (1, 2). The large differences in the tinnitus itself (etiology, lateralization, temporal course, and sound characteristics) results in a heterogonous condition whereby the burden that patients experience is divers and the individual needs of patients for tinnitus related health care are various (3, 4). Negative affective states like depression and anxiety are associated with a lower quality of life (QoL) (8). A large part of the adult population experiences this symptom but never seeks professional help, where others have devastating complaints in daily life. This suggests that the impact of tinnitus varies among patients and may be influenced by coping strategies and multiple psychological factors
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