Hyperacusis Assessment Questionnaire - a new tool for assessment hyperacusis in tinnitus patients.

Introduction: Hyperacusis is a kind of decreased tolerance to sound and is difficult to measure objectively. It often co-occurs with tinnitus. There is a need for valid and reliable patient-reported outcome measures to capture this subjective phenomenon. Aim: The aim of the study to create a questionnaire capturing hyperacusis in terms of loudness, fear, and pain and then to evaluate its psychometric properties. Material and methods: The study group consisted of 106 patients, made up of 51 men and 55 women. They were aged between 19 and 72 years, mean 45.2 years (SD = 12.4). An initial pool of 33 questions capturing hyperacusis was subjected to expert evaluation and pilot testing. Then, a shortened 19-item version of the tool was checked out. Medical interview, au-diological examination and a set of questionnaires: Tinnitus Handicap Inventory, Hyperacusis Questionnaire, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and Visual Analogue Scale was completed by all subjects. Results: The final 14-item Hyperacusis Assessment Questionnaire showed an appropriate three-factor structure that explained 70.5% of the variance. Convergent validity and divergent validity were confirmed by correlations with other measures of hyperacusis, anxiety, tinnitus severity, misophonia, and hearing thresholds. Internal consistency as assessed with Cronbach's alpha was excellent (a = 0.91) as was reproducibility (intra-class correlation, ICC = 0.96). Conclusions: The new Hyperacusis Assessment Questionnaire is a psychometrically sound and brief tool that can assess the severity of hyperacusis in terms of loudness, fear, and pain. It can be used in clinical practice and scientific research for patients with hyperacusis and tinnitus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Hearing Science is the property of Institute of Sensory Organs and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)