Sleep Complaints in Elderly Tinnitus Patients: A Controlled Study

In Brief Objectives: Sleep difficulties are among the most frequent complaints associated with tinnitus. Yet most studies reporting on this problem are rather succinct, and all of them lack proper age- and health-matched control subjects. Design: The present study reports on 102 participants (51 with and 51 without tinnitus), assessed with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Beck-II depression inventory, a hyperacusis questionnaire, and a tinnitus-reaction questionnaire (tinnitus group only). Participants were matched for health and relevant socioeconomic factors. Results: Results show that tinnitus patients have greater self-reported sleep difficulties compared with control subjects, specifically sleep efficiency and sleep quality, and that high tinnitus-related distress is associated with greater sleep disturbance. Conclusions: Rather than hearing loss, sleep complaints in this population are mainly explained by hyperacusis, a hallmark of tinnitus, and to a lesser extent by subclinical depressive symptoms. A standardized sleep questionnaire, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), was used to investigate sleep complaints in a group of 51 elderly participants with tinnitus and 51 controls matched in health and socioeconomical factors. Data on hyperacusis, depressive symptomatology, and tinnitus-related distress (tinnitus group) were collected, as well as hearing thresholds. Results showed that self-reported sleep quality and sleep efficiency were worse in the tinnitus than in the control group, but daily disturbances were not. Sleep complaints were mainly explained by hyperacusis, and to a lesser extent by subclinical depressive symptoms, rather than hearing loss. Greater tinnitus distress was associated with worse sleep quality.