Corthals P, Vinck B, De Vel E, Van Cauwenberge P
Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Hospital Ghent, Belgium.
Scand Audiol. 1998;27(1):31-6. doi: 10.1080/010503998419678.
In cases of substantial auditory handicap, the degree of pure-tone hearing loss or hearing loss for speech is seen as the primary determining factor. Sometimes the presence of tinnitus complaints and disproportionate masking effects of noise on speech reception are seen as aggravating factors. To investigate the relevance of tinnitus and masking effects in the context of hearing disability, four factorial designs with self-perceived hearing disability as the dependent variable were submitted to an analysis of variance. Impact of masking and tinnitus complaints were treated as independent variables with two levels and were each combined with a second independent variable to form a 2 x 2 fixed factor statistical model. This second independent variable was either hearing loss for pure tones (first and second model) or speech reception ability (third and fourth model). Both hearing loss for pure tones and speech reception capability were found to be significant explanatory factors for hearing disability. Impact of masking, if juxtaposed to average pure-tone hearing loss (first model), also came out of the analysis as a significant factor in hearing disability, whereas the tinnitus factor did not reach significance levels. No significant interactions between factors were found. The results support the idea of the differentiating audiogram-based disability estimates by taking noise susceptibility into account. The findings also suggest in an equivocal relation of tinnitus with hearing disability, which prevents it from being a straightforward disability predictor.
在严重听觉障碍的病例中，纯音听力损失程度或言语听力损失被视为主要决定因素。有时，耳鸣主诉的存在以及噪声对言语接收的不成比例的掩蔽效应被视为加重因素。为了研究耳鸣和掩蔽效应在听力残疾背景下的相关性，将四个以自我感知的听力残疾为因变量的析因设计进行方差分析。掩蔽的影响和耳鸣主诉被视为有两个水平的自变量，并且各自与第二个自变量组合以形成2×2固定因子统计模型。这个第二个自变量要么是纯音听力损失（第一和第二个模型），要么是言语接收能力（第三和第四个模型）。纯音听力损失和言语接收能力都被发现是听力残疾的重要解释因素。如果将掩蔽的影响与平均纯音听力损失并列（第一个模型），在分析中它也作为听力残疾的一个重要因素出现，而耳鸣因素未达到显著水平。未发现因素之间的显著交互作用。结果支持通过考虑噪声易感性来区分基于听力图的残疾估计的观点。研究结果还表明耳鸣与听力残疾之间存在一种模糊的关系，这使得它不能成为一个直接的残疾预测指标。
