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Correlation between clinical characteristics and tinnitus severity in tinnitus patients of different sexes: an analytic retrospective study

  • Otology
  • Published:
European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

This study aimed to explore whether sex is influences tinnitus severity and whether the risk factors for tinnitus severity are the same in tinnitus patients of different sexes.

Methods

This was a retrospective study of data from 1427 patients complaining of tinnitus in a local hospital otolaryngology clinic from November 2019 to January 2022. All patients were interviewed and assessed by otoscopy, pure-tone audiometry, tinnitus handicap inventory (THI), visual analogue scale (VAS), and tinnitus refinement test.

Results

THI values were higher in females than in males (P = 0.00). Types of tinnitus sounds (OR 0.667, P = 0.000) and degree of hearing loss (OR 1.318, P = 0.000) were risk factors for tinnitus severity in males. Types of tinnitus sounds (OR 0.789, P = 0.005), sensation level (OR 1.023, P = 0.037), tinnitus types (OR 1.163, P = 0.041), tinnitus location (OR 1.198, P = 0.026), and the degree of hearing loss (OR 1.303, P = 0.000) were risk factors for tinnitus severity in females. Sex was an influencing factor for tinnitus severity. There were different risk factors for the tinnitus severity in different sexes.

Conclusion

The risk factors for tinnitus severity differed according to sex in tinnitus patients, and the risk factors for tinnitus severity were greater in women than in men. These findings add to the literature on sex differences in tinnitus and suggest that medical and psychological screening of affected individuals and customized tinnitus treatment for each individual with tinnitus are needed.

Trial registration number/date of registration

ChiCTR2200057958, 2022/3/24 (retrospectively registered trials).

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Data availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available on request to the corresponding author: Lian-Jun Lu, E-mail: lulianj@fmmu.edu.cn.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all participants for their time during this study.

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Military Logistics Research Project of China [18CXZ015].

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Author notes

  1. Hao Yuan, Pei-Heng Lu and Jia-Wei Chen have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, Tangdu Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, China

    Hao Yuan, Pei-Heng Lu, Jia-Wei Chen, Peng-Wei Ma, Wei-Long Wang, Xue-Rui Ding, Yu-Qiang Lun, Wei Gao & Lian-Jun Lu

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  1. Hao Yuan
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Contributions

All the authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by P-HL, J-WC, P-WM, W-LW, X-RD, and Y-QL. The first draft of the manuscript was written by HY, P-HL, and J-WC and all the authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All the authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lian-Jun Lu.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Ethics approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Bioethics Committee of Tangdu Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University (No. TDLL-202203-13).

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Yuan, H., Lu, PH., Chen, JW. et al. Correlation between clinical characteristics and tinnitus severity in tinnitus patients of different sexes: an analytic retrospective study. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 280, 167–173 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-022-07480-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-022-07480-x

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