Development and psychometric validation of a questionnaire assessing the impact of tinnitus on significant others.
Eldré W Beukes, David W Maidment, Gerhard Andersson and 3 others
PMID 34894419WHAT IT FOUND
A new 25-item questionnaire reliably measures how tinnitus burdens partners and family members.
It distinguishes mild, significant, and severe impact using specific cut-off scores. Use it to identify which significant others need support, as their distress often mirrors the patient's severity.
Key findings
01The questionnaire accurately distinguishes between different levels of tinnitus severity in the patient, with specific cut-off scores identifying mild, significant, and severe impact on the significant other.
02Scores on the new measure correlated moderately with the patient's own tinnitus severity, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbance, confirming it captures the patient's clinical picture.
03Significant others of patients with severe tinnitus scored significantly higher on the questionnaire than those with mild or significant tinnitus.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample consisted of people actively seeking help for bothersome tinnitus, so results may not generalize to those with mild or non-bothersome tinnitus. Responsiveness was assessed with a smaller post-intervention sample (63 pairs), which may have reduced power to detect change over time. No existing validated measures for third-party disability in tinnitus were available for direct comparison, so validation relied on correlating with patient-reported outcomes. The study did not use modern psychometric methods like Rasch analysis, though this was justified by the formative model of the questionnaire.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (N.I.H., Extramural). No other conflicts of interest are declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the questionnaire measures the same construct as the patient's own severity scale. While scores correlate, the CTSOQ measures the impact on the significant other, which may differ due to individual coping mechanisms. Also, responsiveness was not fully confirmed, so use it cautiously for tracking change over time until further validation is available.