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Purpose: To create a questionnaire focused on the primary activities impaired by tinnitus and therefore more sensitive to treatments.
Method: Questions were developed on (a) emotions, (b) hearing, (c) sleep, and (d) concentration. A 20-item questionnaire was administered to 158 patients. First, confirmatory factor analysis was used to select 3 questions per domain. Second, factor analysis was used to evaluate the appropriateness of the 12-item questionnaire.
Results: The analysis indicated that the selected questions successfully represented 4 independent domains. Scores were correlated with the Tinnitus Handicap Questionnaire ( r = .77, p < .01) and loudness ( r = .40, p < .01). The Sleep subscale correlated with the Pittsburgh Sleep Index ( r =.68, p < .01); the Emotion subscale correlated with the Beck Inventory (r =.66,p < .01) and the Trait Anxiety questionnaire ( r =.67,p < .01). The average scores went from 51% to 38% following treatment.
Conclusion: The Tinnitus Primary Function Questionnaire is valid, reliable, and sensitive and can be used to determine the efficacy of clinical trials.
Key Words: assessment, tinnitus, efficacy
In Dauman and Tyler (1992), the authors proposed a psychological model of tinnitus in which the overall impact of tinnitus is influenced by the characteristics of the tinnitus (pitch, loudness, and quality) and the psy- chological makeup of the individual. It was suggested that treatments that are aimed at reducing reactions to tinnitus should use questionnaires, whereas treatments aimed at reducing the magnitude of the tinnitus should focus on tinnitus measures (loudness and masking; Tyler, 1992).
Several questionnaires have now been developed to document the handicapping nature of tinnitus and to mea- sure change in clinical trials (Meikle, Stewart, Griest, & Henry, 2008; Newman & Sandridge, 2004; Tyler, 1993, 2000). Some widely used questionnaires are the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), developed by Newman, Jacobson, and Spitzer (1996); the Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire by Wilson, Henry, Bowen, and Haralambous (1991); the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI) by Meikle et al. (2012); and the Tinnitus Questionnaire (Hiller & Goebel, 2004).
Our own involvement with tinnitus questionnaires began by simply asking patients to list the problems that they attributed to their tinnitus (Tyler & Baker, 1983). We later used these patient responses to develop the Tinnitus Handicap Questionnaire (THQ; Kuk, Tyler, Russell,...