Psychopathologic disease in patients with tinnitus: a case control of an outpatient cohort

The goal of this work was to study if patients suffering from tinnitus, that affects 14.5% of Italian people, are more susceptible to psychological distress than those who are not affected by tinnitus; to evaluate the prevalence of psychopathological disorders among the cohort, their relationship with the severity of tinnitus and eventual correlation between the distress caused by tinnitus and age of patients. 191 cases and 237 controls were enrolled between 2009-2011. Cases were 80 females and 111 males with mean age of 48.06. Controls were 106 females and 131 males with mean age of 47.09. Overall subjects completed Symptom CheckList-90 R (SCL 90-R) and some brief questionnaire about audiological history while Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) was compiled by cases. Our study indicates that there is a significance correlation between tinnitus and psychopathological disorders, especially with anxiety (χ2=8.08; p=0.004) and sleep disturbance (χ2=38.85; p=0.0001) and there is a slight correlation between higher THI score and lower age subjects (r=0.76). Especially causing working impairment, the highest correlation resulted for ages 25-50 (r=0.96).