PURPOSE: A retrospective analysis of tonal and speech loudness discomfort levels (LDLs) relative to a subjective report of sound tolerance (SRST) was performed to explore the relation between the 2 commonly used clinical measures. METHOD: Tonal LDLs and SRST were measured for 139 U.S. military veterans who were recruited into a study providing intervention for tinnitus. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were computed to assess the relation between the tonal and speech LDLs and the SRST. RESULTS: Only weak correlations were found between tonal LDLs and SRST and between speech LDLs and SRST. CONCLUSION: If LDLs ratings of SRST measured the same phenomenon, the measures would be strongly negatively correlated. The weak correlations found between the measures suggest that LDLs do not accurately represent a patient's ability to tolerate sound in daily life.
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Zaugg et al. (2016) studied this question.
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