An Albanian translation of a questionnaire for self-reported tinnitus assessment

Genitsaridi E 1 , Dode A 2 , Qirjazi B 3 , Mehdi M 4 , Pryss R 5 , Probst T 6 Show all authors , Reichert M 2 , Hauck F 4 , Hall DA 1

Affiliations 

  • 1 Hearing Sciences, Mental Health and Clinical Neurosciences, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
  • 2 Institute of Databases and Information Systems, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
  • 3 Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tirana, Tirana, Albania
  • 4 Institute of Distributed Systems, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany
  • 5 Institute of Clinical Epidemiology and Biometry, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
  • 6 Department for Psychotherapy and Biopsychosocial Health, Danube University Krems, Krems, Austria
Int J Audiol, 2021 Jun 28.
PMID: 34182868 DOI: 10.1080/14992027.2021.1933221

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To our knowledge, there is no published study investigating the characteristics of people experiencing tinnitus in Albania. Such a study would be important, providing the basis for further research in this region and contributing to a wider understanding of tinnitus heterogeneity across different geographic locations. The main objective of this study was to develop an Albanian translation of a standardised questionnaire for tinnitus research, namely the European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research-Screening Questionnaire (ESIT-SQ). A secondary objective was to assess its applicability and usefulness by conducting an exploratory survey on a small sample of the Albanian tinnitus population.

DESIGN AND STUDY SAMPLE: Three translators were recruited to create the Albanian ESIT-SQ translation following good practice guidelines. Using this questionnaire, data from 107 patients attending otolaryngology clinics in Albania were collected.

RESULTS: Participants reporting various degrees of tinnitus symptom severity had distinct phenotypic characteristics. Application of a random forest approach on this preliminary dataset showed that self-reported hearing difficulty, and tinnitus duration, pitch and temporal manifestation were important variables for predicting tinnitus symptom severity.

CONCLUSIONS: Our study provided an Albanian translation of the ESIT-SQ and demonstrated that it is a useful tool for tinnitus profiling and subgrouping.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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