Reliability and Validity of the Chinese (Mandarin) Tinnitus Handicap Inventory

Abstract

ObjectivesThe Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) is a commonly used self-reporting tinnitus questionnaire. We undertook this study to determine the reliability and validity of the Chinese-Mandarin version of the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI-CM) for measuring tinnitus-related handicaps.MethodsWe tested the test-retest reliability, internal reliability, and construct validity of the THI-CM. Two-hundred patients seeking treatment for primary or secondary tinnitus in Southwest China were asked to complete THI-CM prior to clinical evaluation. Patients were evaluated by a clinician using standard methods, and 40 patients were asked to complete THI-CM a second time 14±3 days after the initial interview.ResultsThe test-retest reliability of THI-CM was high (Pearson correlation, 0.98), as was the internal reliability (Cronbach's α, 0.93). Factor analysis indicated that THI-CM has a unifactorial structure.ConclusionThe THI-CM version is reliable. The total score in THI-CM can be used to measure tinnitus-related handicaps in Mandarin-speaking populations.

A confirmatory factor analytic validation of the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory

“…Interestingly, in contrast to previous studies [39,40,44,46,51,60] the results of the current study support a threefactor solution including a functional, an emotional, and a catastrophic subscale as originally postulated by Newman and colleagues [37]. Furthermore it was demonstrated that the three-factor structure fits significantly better than a general factor model.…”

“…The originally postulated three THI factors [37] are rather based on item content but not on factor analysis [37]. Six studies [39,40,44,46,51,60] tried to confirm the factorial structure by factor analysis. However they could not validate the three-factorial but rather a unifactorial structure.…”

“…High levels of reliability were demonstrated for the THI in many different populations [39,40,[42][43][44][45]49,51,52]. Moreover construct validity of this measure was examined thoroughly in populations of several countries.…”

Validation of a French (Québec) version of the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory

“…translated into and validated in Spanish (Herr à iz et al, 2001), Danish (Zachariae et al, 2000), Italian (Crocetti et al, 2009;Monzani et al, 2008;Passi et al, 2008), German (Kleinjung et al, 2007), Korean (Kim et al, 2002), Brazilian Portuguese (Alves Ferreira et al, 2005;Dias et al, 2006;Petersen Schmidt et al, 2006), Turkish (Aksoy et al, 2007), Cantonese (Kam et al, 2009), Hebrew (Oron et al, 2011), Mandarin (Meng et al, 2012), and Thai (Limviriyakul & Supavanich, 2012). Moreover, our clinical experience suggests that, unlike similar types of scales, the THI introduces very little bias related to hearing loss.…”

Correlation of severity of tinnitus with severity of anxiety and depression in adults in a tertiary care hospital at Bhuj, Gujarat, India

“…Since then, THI has been adapted in various languages -Hebrew, Mandarin, Hungarian, French and Russian, to mention just the most recent. [13][14][15][16][17] Various studies have demonstrated that patients with tinnitus have life time prevalence of psychiatric morbidity higher than general population. 18 Belli et al found anxiety disorder in 28% and somatoform and mood disorder in 15% of tinnitus patients compared to 6% of controls.…”