Tinnitus severity, loudness, and depression

Abstract

Answers to questionnaires filled out by 436 patients who visited our tinnitus clinic were analyzed. Patients were asked to report the presence or absence of depression and to rate the loudness and severity of their tinnitus. Responses to questions about tinnitus loudness and severity from 121 patients who reported current depression were compared with responses from 285 patients who reported no history of depression. There was no significant difference in reported loudness of tinnitus between patients with and without depression. However, patients with current depression scored significantly higher than patients without depression on all 12 questions relating to tinnitus severity. We conclude that depression and tinnitus severity are linked in some patients. Treatment of depression with medications and psychotherapy is likely to reduce tinnitus severity for many of these patients.

Tratamento do zumbido com a trazodona

“…Thus, satisfactory results corroborate a double mechanism for tinnitus improvement in these patients, in other words, acting on the neurotransmitters of the central auditory pathway receptors and on psychogenic/depression factors 19,20,21 . There are reports of tinnitus onset or return in patients under use of antidepressant medication when it was discontinued because of improvements in the depression 22,23 .…”

Blast-Induced Tinnitus and Hearing Loss in Rats: Behavioral and Imaging Assays

“…It is estimated that up to 50 million Americans have experienced tinnitus, and that as many as 16 million perceive tinnitus frequently (Adams and Marano, 1995;Shargorodsky et al, 2010). Tinnitus can inflict a wide range of distress; it has been strongly correlated with difficulty sleeping, irritability, anxiety, and depression (Andersson, 2002(Andersson, , 2004Andersson and McKenna, 1998;Belli et al, 2008;Cronlein et al, 2007;Dobie, 2003;Erlandsson and Hallberg, 2000;Folmer and Griest, 2000;Folmer et al, 1999;Halford and Anderson, 1991;Hebert and Carrier, 2007;Marciano et al, 2003;McKenna, 2000;McKenna et al, 1991;Robinson et al, 2003;Tyler and Conrad-Armes, 1983;Tyler et al, 2007). Tinnitus has been shown to negatively influence cognitive functioning such as working memory and attention (Rossiter et al, 2006;Stevens et al, 2007), and at the extreme, has been linked to suicide ( Johnston and Walker, 1996;Lewis et al, 1994;Turner et al, 2007).…”

The relationship of perceived severity of tinnitus with depression, anxiety, hearing status, age and gender in individuals with tinnitus

“…Psychoacoustic measures, such as loudness or pitch, are reported to show little or no relationship to the distress reported by tinnitus individuals 4,14 . Hence, selfreport measures are the standard means of determining severity of tinnitus-related distress.…”