Tinnitus self-assessment scales: Domains of coverage and psychometric properties

Abstract

Practitioners in the disciplines of rehabilitative audiology and clinical psychology find themselves in each other's neighborhood as regards the phenomenon of tinnitus. As a disorder, tinnitus is generally unresponsive to direct forms of intervention using pharmacological or physical agents. By contrast, some success is observed following hearing aid fitting, or following a course of cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT). Andersson and Lyttkens provide a useful summation of research using CBT and other forms of psychological treatment. Critical to any form of treatment for tinnitus is the reliance placed on measures to assess the effectiveness of the intervention. The purpose of this paper is to review a range of available tinnitus self-rating scales, in particular to describe: (1) their domains of coverage and (2) their psychometric properties. It is of practical value to indicate these two features. Clinicians need to have confidence that a measurement device assesses in the domains that an intervention is designed to address and that the device is well-behaved in terms of its factor structure and test-retest reliability. The latter feature is especially important for calculating the likelihood that any change in a self-assessed quality is not simply due to measurement error. Not all the scales included here have been tested on factor structure and test-retest stability (one or two have included neither); more attention will be given to scales in which both features have been covered.