Tinnitus Evaluated by Subjective Scores of Annoyance and Difficulty in Activities of Daily Life.

We evaluated tinnitus with a five-score scale for each of three subjective complaints: 1) loudness, 2) annoyance, and 3) difficulties in activities of daily life (ADL). We divided 147 outpatients with tinnitus into five groups according to the relationship between scores of annoyance and of difficulties in ADL in relation to scores of loudness, and analyzed the following characteristics of each group: hearing loss, duration from onset of tinnitus and psychological factors. The numbers in each group among out-patients differed considerably from those among in-patients reported previously. In most of the patients with scores of annoyance higher than the other two scores, hearing loss was not very severe. On the contrary, in more than half of the patients whose scores of difficulties in ADL were higher than the other two scores, hearing loss was moderate or severe, and the duration of tinnitus was less than one year. In addition to these two characteristics (moderate to severe hearing loss and relatively short duration of tinnitus), patients with scores of both annoyance and difficulties in ADL which were higher than those of loudness might be considered to have psychological problems. These results suggest that the degree of hearing loss, duration from the onset of tinnitus and psychological factors influence the subjective complaints of patients with tinnitus, and that the most important factor is the degree of hearing loss. This method of tinnitus evaluation appears to be very useful clinically, since it examines various aspects of tinnitus.