Tinnitus severity and its association with cognitive and somatic anxiety: a critical study.
From: Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol. 2011 Dec 23. [Epub ahead of print]
Tinnitus has been defined as a phantom auditory perception. Research indicates the necessity to make a distinction between the physical symptom and the subjective severity of the tinnitus symptom, since especially the latter seems to vary among patients. The relationship between tinnitus severity and psychological variables has been well established. Anxiety is considered to be an important variable for understanding the differences in the subjective tinnitus severity. Although many studies confirm the relationship between anxiety and tinnitus severity, most studies do not take the possibility of shared method variance and content overlap between questionnaires into account. Furthermore, anxiety is a broad concept and contains both a cognitive and somatic dimension.
Research including both dimensions of anxiety in tinnitus population is rare. According to the authors two conditions must be fulfilled before theorization on the relation is useful: (1) the presence of clinically relevant cognitive and/or somatic anxiety, (2) evidence of a substantial or “real” relationship. In this sample, almost 60% reported more than average cognitive anxiety and 40.8% reported clinical relevant somatic anxiety. After controlling for content overlap between the questionnaires used, the relation between tinnitus severity and cognitive and somatic anxiety remains significant. Two hypothetical models concerning this relationship that deserve future research attention are described in this article.
Tinnitus is a common problem in the population. With the aging of the population, the prevalence of tinnitus will increase. The prevention of tinnitus should focus on hearing impairment screening, otitis media treatment, and noise exposure reduction.
