Quality of Life and Psychological Distress in Portuguese older Individual’s with Tinnitus
Haula F Haider1,2,3, Sara F Ribeiro1,2*, Derek J Hoare4, Graca Fialho5, Deborah A Hall6, Marilia Antunes7, Helena Caria5,8 and Joao Paco1,2
1ENT Department, Hospital CufTejo, Nova Medical School, Lisbon, Portugal.
2CUF Academic and Research Medical Center, Lisbon, Portugal.
3Comprehensive Health Research Centre(CHRC),Lisbon, Portugal.
4National Institute for Health Research(NIHR), Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre, Hearing Sciences, Mental Health and Clinical Neuroscience, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
5BioISI–Biosystems &Integrative Sciences Institute , Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisboa, Portugal.
6Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, Putrajaya, Malaysia.
7Centro de Estatistica e Aplicacoese, Departamento de Estatística e Investigacao Operacional, Faculda de de Ciencias, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal.
8Polytechnic Institute of Setubal, School of Health-Biomedical Sciences, Department, CIIAS, Setubal, Portugal.
Citation: Haider HF, Ribeiro SF, Hoare DJ, Fialho G, Hall DA et al (2021) Quality of Life and Psychological Distress in Portuguese older Individual’s with Tinnitus. SciTech Mental Health 2021.
Received: September 08, 2021 Accepted: September 13, 2021 Published: September 13, 2021
Abstract
Tinnitus is the perception of a sound without an external source often associated with adverse psychologicaland emotional effects leading to impaired quality of life (QoL). The present study investigated the QoL andpsychological distress in tinnitus patients and analysed the effects of associated comorbidities. Tonal and speech audiometry, tinnitus assessment, and clinical interview were obtained from 122 Portuguese individuals (aged from 55 to 75). Portuguese ver-sions of the Brief Symptoms Inventory (BSI), the Medical Outcomes Study Short Form Health Survey (MOS SF-36) and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) were used to evaluatepsychological distress, health-related quality of life, social difficulties and tinnitus severity. The presence oftin-nitus was significantly associated with hearing loss. The increases in tinnitus severity were asso-ciated withdecreases in QoL, particularly regarding MOS SF-36 subscales “perception of health”, “social functioning”,and “mental health”. Regarding BSI, patients with greater tinnitus severity had more severe psychopathologysymptoms, measured with scales “Obsessive-compulsive”, “Depression”, “Anxiety”, “Hostility” and “Phobic Anxiety”. Our study supports the notion about the negative impact of increased tinnitus severity on Quality ofLife and psychological distress in older adults. Presented data strengthen the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to tinnitus assessment and treatment.
Keywords:Tinnitus, Quality of life, Psychological distress, Comorbidities
