Tinnitus severity and the relation to depressive symptoms: A critical study

Abstract

IntroductionResearch indicates that subjective tinnitus severity varies among tinnitus patients. One of the variables held responsible for these differences is depression. However the relationship between depression and tinnitus severity was never investigated more in depth.ObjectivesIf depression is responsible for differences in subjective tinnitus severity two conditions need to be fulfilled. First, there should be evidence for the presence of moderate to severe depressive symptomatology in a substantial group, and second, there should be evidence for a substantial relationship between depressive symptoms and tinnitus severity which can not be explained due to method and content overlap.AimsIn this study we investigated whether tinnitus severity is a depression related problem.Methods136 consecutive help-seeking tinnitus patients were seen by a psychologist and an audiologist. All patients filled in the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II), the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), and underwent psychoacoustic measurement (pitch and loudness).ResultsMean scores indicate the presence of no or minimal depressive symptoms. There was only a positive correlation (p < .01) between the BDI-II and the THI. No correlations were found between psychoacoustic measures and the self-report questionnaires. Linear regression analysis revealed that only the somatic depression subscale significantly predicted tinnitus severity.ConclusionsTinnitus does not seem to be a depression-like problem. There is no substantial group of tinnitus patients with moderate to severe depressive symptoms. The relation between depressive symptoms and tinnitus severity seems to be an artefact due to content overlap between de THI and the somatic subscale of the BDI-II.

The influence of psychological factors on tinnitus severity

“…A recent study also found that tinnitus handicap is more related to somatic symptoms of DEP, as compared to affective or cognitive symptoms [33]. The higher sensitivity of the TQ to SOM can be explained by the fact that four items of the TQ address specifically somatic symptoms.…”

“…Greater lifetime prevalence of major DEP in a group of tinnitus patients compared to controls has also been demonstrated [9,16]. However, it has to be considered that the significant correlation between self-report instruments that assess tinnitus severity and DEP is partly explained by content overlap of some items in these questionnaires [33,12].…”

Clinical and audiologic characteristics of patients with sensorineural tinnitus and its association with psychological aspects: an analytic retrospective study

“…Three factors were identified to have a unique significant effect on tinnitus severity when measured on both the TQ and THI: (1) percentage of tinnitus awareness during the day, (2) self-reported depression and/or anxiety, and (3) tinnitus loudness. A close relationship between tinnitus and depression and/or anxiety has been demonstrated multiple times [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Other studies did not show a positive correlation between anxiety or depression and tinnitus [10,15].…”

Socio-Demographic, Health, and Tinnitus Related Variables Affecting Tinnitus Severity

“…Eleven of these studies evaluated only a small number of potential variables and were thus not able to perform a contributory multivariate analysis (Axelsson & Ringdahl 1989;Halford & Anderson 1991;Henry & Wilson 1995;Meric et al 1998;Andersson et al 2001;Mazurek et al 2010;Pinto et al 2010;Mondelli & da Rocha 2011;Schlee et al 2011;Ooms et al 2011;Ooms et al 2012). Multivariate analyses are essential in finding uniquely related variables because these take into account the interdependencies between different variables.…”