The Effects of Tinnitus and Tinnitus Annoyance on Need for Recovery After Work: Results of the Netherlands Longitudinal Study on Hearing.
Iris A Simons, Thadé Goderie, Birgit I Lissenberg-Witte and 3 others
PMID 36573900WHAT IT FOUND
After adjusting for distress, somatization, and hearing disability, having tinnitus or being annoyed by it was not associated with a higher need for recovery after work.
The apparent link in unadjusted data disappeared once these psychological and auditory factors were accounted for.
Key findings
01Participants with tinnitus had a statistically non-significant 2.5% higher need for recovery after work compared to those without tinnitus after adjusting for confounders.
02Tinnitus annoyance was not associated with need for recovery after work after adjusting for confounders and interaction with speech recognition.
03Need for recovery was associated with distress, somatization, and depression, which are intricately related to tinnitus.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The analysis was cross-sectional in nature, as dependent and independent variables were measured at the same time, preventing causal inferences. Only factors available in the existing NL-SH database were considered, so other unidentified confounders might have influenced the results. Tinnitus was assessed with a simple yes/no question without capturing temporal characteristics like duration or frequency, potentially including brief transient episodes in the tinnitus group. The high prevalence of tinnitus in the sample (37.6% at T1 and 42.4% at T2) may reflect the online recruitment method and the inclusion of both normal-hearing and hearing-impaired adults, which might not represent clinical populations.
Declared interests
The paper does not explicitly state funding sources or conflicts of interest in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that tinnitus has no impact on work-related fatigue. The null finding after adjustment suggests that distress, somatization, and hearing disability are the primary drivers of need for recovery in this population, not that tinnitus is irrelevant. Ignoring these co-occurring factors would misinterpret the result.