Are demographic and socioeconomic factors predictive for perceived tinnitus impairment?

Patients suffering from chronic tinnitus were analyzed to examine whether tinnitus impairments can be predicted by demographic and socioeconomic factors. For this purpose, subjective tinnitus complaints were measured in 153 patients using the tinnitus impairment questionnaire (THI-12) that distinguishes between emotional-cognitive and functional-communicative factors. Age, gender, marital status, and education levels were assessed and treated as predictive variables. In computing canonical correlations, only the level of education served as a significant emotional-cognitive predictor for tinnitus impairment. Patients with lower education demonstrated impairments in the emotional-cognitive domain that were more marked than those in higher-educated people. The results indicated that demographic and socioeconomic variables have no predictive value for tinnitus impairments, with the exception of a person's level of education.