Influence of different aspects on psychoacoustic measurements of patients with chronic tinnitus

Purpose: to verify the sex, age, tinnitus location, presence or absence of hearing loss, its degree, and the psychoacoustic measurements (pitch, loudness, minimum masking level [MML], and residual inhibition [RI]) of patients with chronic tinnitus and their relationships. Methods: the study included subjects of both sexes, aged 25 to 85 years, with complaints of chronic tinnitus, followed up at the health service where the research was conducted. They were submitted to medical history survey, basic audiological assessment, and pitch, loudness, RI, and MML research. The following statistical tests were used: chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis test, and Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The significance level was set at 5% (p≤0.05). Results: the type of tinnitus was associated with the presence or absence of hearing loss (HL), degree of HL, MML, and loudness; age was associated with the presence or absence of HL and its degree. There was a directly weak proportional correlation between loudness and MML, whereas the correlations between pitch and loudness, pitch and MML, and RI and MML were weak and inversely proportional. Conclusion: both the affected subjects and their tinnitus characteristics were heterogeneous. The results indicate that some variables influence one another, which also happens between psychoacoustic measurements.