Big Five Personality Traits Are Associated with Tinnitus Improvement Over Time

[Frédéric]

Abstract
Previous studies have shown that personality traits are related to tinnitus distress as measured by the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ). However, little is known about the role of personality on tinnitus distress over time. We collected the THI and the TQ of 388 patients who visited a tertiary tinnitus clinic between 2012 and 2017, and who filled in a survey with the same questionnaires plus the Big Five Index 2 in 2018. We used personality traits and facets to predict tinnitus distress cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, age and gender were significant predictors of the THI and TQ scores in cross-sectional linear regression setups. Next, based on previous literature, we clustered patients in three groups based in the difference THI and TQ between the two assessments: "clinically improved", "clinically stable" and "clinically worsened". The patients in the "clinically improved" and "clinically stable" groups scored statistically significantly lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion than patients in the group "clinically worsened". Our results suggest that personality is associated with tinnitus distress over time and could be used to statistically distinguish patient groups with clinically relevant changes of tinnitus distress.

Full article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-53845-4

 

[JohnAdams]

What is "tinnitus improvement"?

An explicit decrease in ringing?

I'm so sick of people saying their tinnitus improved when in reality they just are feeling better and habituating.

Habituation is not an improvement in tinnitus, it is an improvement in your feelings. These two things are mutually exclusive.

Convoluting these terms is doing great harm to our situation.

 

[JohnAdams]

If you've habituated good for you. There are some people that cannot habituate and need medical research to catch up to them. Stop saying your tinnitus improved when it hasn't. You are harming severe sufferers.

 

[FGG]

If you've habituated good for you. There are some people that cannot habituate and need medical research to catch up to them. Stop saying your tinnitus improved when it hasn't. You are harming severe sufferers.

It's ludicrous. Imagine if they said the same thing about being in a better mental state and thinking about your paraplegia less an "improvement in paraplegia".

 

[JohnAdams]

It's ludicrous. Imagine of they being in a better mental state and thinking about your paraplegia less an "improvement in paraplegia".

It is also clear from the habituation shrinks that they think it is the fault of the sufferers for allowing tinnitus to bother them. This is blatant gas-lighting. It is diabolical. We need to be pushing back as a community against this paradigm.

 

[Agrajag364]

Studies like this are always interesting - there are plenty with various illness, and I could belive the association with neuroticism and various disease. The problem with these studies is they normally only look at the association in one direction- they very rarely seem to consider the effect of physical illness on people's character and answers the type of questions you might get in the Big Five personality tests. For example... if someone's tinnitus gets worse over time, would that not make them more likely to answer questions in a way that's marked less agreeable and more neurotic?

You see this alot in studies on things like IBS - there must be 100s of studies saying people who report their IBS as severe are more likely to score highly on anxiety and depression questionnaires. Very rarely do the study authors speculate, hang on, it might just be that long term difficult physical symptoms can make a person more anxtious - the focus is all on the anxiety etiher causing the symptoms, or being associated with a bad reaction to them.

 

[MRItechssuck]

Did mine go away, or was I habituated? I'm not up on all the definitions.

I'm not sure what happened to me years ago... suddenly after several years, I never thought about my tinnitus.

I don't recall hearing any ringing for the last decade, but maybe my memory is bad too... old age and all that.

Sure I protected my ears, but I never thought about the ringing. I doubt I could even find it if I listened to it... but that's it... I never tried testing for it.

I think people get too involved in the increases, the decreases...."my breakfast spiked my tinnitus" etc...

It's difficult, but once you tell yourself "f—k it... I have to move on" I think things get better.

But yeah, I sure as heck know about it 24/7 now... still trying to move on... again... groundhog day.

 

[mrbrightside614]

Studies like this are always interesting - there are plenty with various illness, and I could belive the association with neuroticism and various disease. The problem with these studies is they normally only look at the association in one direction- they very rarely seem to consider the effect of physical illness on people's character and answers the type of questions you might get in the Big Five personality tests. For example... if someone's tinnitus gets worse over time, would that not make them more likely to answer questions in a way that's marked less agreeable and more neurotic?

You see this alot in studies on things like IBS - there must be 100s of studies saying people who report their IBS as severe are more likely to score highly on anxiety and depression questionnaires. Very rarely do the study authors speculate, hang on, it might just be that long term difficult physical symptoms can make a person more anxtious - the focus is all on the anxiety etiher causing the symptoms, or being associated with a bad reaction to them.

More conflating the egg with the chicken. More research money down the drain AFAIC.

I know FOR A FACT that when my HF tinnitus is diminished, my anxiety is lower, I am more sociable and I'd even go far as to say, more intelligent.

Tinnitus —> anxiety/depression—> cognitive/psychosocial impairment.

 

[DaveFromChicago]

When will the Medical/Research World realize that in spite of our exhaustive efforts to accommodate ourselves to this, there should be the final realization that there is frankly no substitute for reduction and eventual elimination?

Why is this condition so widely characterized as a phenomenon that is other than a species of veritable pain?

It is incredible that the number of suicides have not induced the Medical/Research World to admit that these "coping strategies" are egregiously inadequate, in fact no more serviceable that the claptrap espoused by Julian Cowan Hill.

 

[ChrisBoyMonkey]

Why are they still doing bull like this? Why don't they just send money to Dr. Shore, Hough Ear Institute, or Dr. Tzounopoulos?

If they can stop the ringing altogether there is no need for all this "subtyping" nonsense. So long as there are people complaining about it, there will always be "subtypes". Stop the ringing itself and subtype problem solved.

It's a waste of time and resources.

 

[JohnAdams]

Why are they still doing bull like this? Why don't they just send money to Dr. Shore, Hough Ear Institute, or Dr. Tzounopoulos?

If they can stop the ringing altogether there is no need for all this "subtyping" nonsense. So long as there are people complaining about it, there will always be "subtypes". Stop the ringing itself and subtype problem solved.

It's a waste of time and resources.

Don't you get it? If you would just habituate you wouldn't need or even want a cure.

 

[ChrisBoyMonkey]

Don't you get it? If you would just habituate you wouldn't need or even want a cure.

I could understand why this stuff might have made sense in the past but when we have treatments in sight this is redundant.

No good ever comes from these studies.

 

[AfroSnowman]

I've got no problem with basic science being done, even self evident info confirmed is worthwhile. It may in an unforeseen way in the future allow insights for researchers who are actually trying to determine the success of treatments.

We aren't the audience for this study. I'm sure there are some clinical and research phycologists who would have some esoteric interest or (though I don't see it) practical application for this study.

I don't think the presence of this study is disrespectful of the pain we go through. I can't imagine that it claims that tinnitus isn't a real phenomena. That being said I didn't read the thing so what do I know?

 

[Bill Bauer]

Why are they still doing bull like this? Why don't they just send money to Dr. Shore, Hough Ear Institute, or Dr. Tzounopoulos?

If they can stop the ringing altogether there is no need for all this "subtyping" nonsense. So long as there are people complaining about it, there will always be "subtypes". Stop the ringing itself and subtype problem solved.

It's a waste of time and resources.

Finding a cure may take a long time (as in decades), and might prove to be impossible. Helping some people to get used to their tinnitus is easier.

 

[JohnAdams]

Berthold Langguth.

He is part of the ESIT, and was the principal investigator for the last NEUROMOD trial and also works for NEUROMOD.

I am telling you all, these people are not our friends. They are the establishment. They seem to be doing everything they can to waste time and money.

The tinnitus establishment is a very small world and the people leading it are some real blokes.

Call me a conspiracy nut, but I think they are purposefully trying to freeze research towards an answer to what is even going on with tinnitus dead in its tracks.

 

[ajc]

Berthold Langguth.

He is part of the ESIT, and was the principal investigator for the last NEUROMOD trial and also works for NEUROMOD.

I am telling you all, these people are not our friends. They are the establishment. They seem to be doing everything they can to waste time and money.

Lol now Neuromod is CBT and TRT in your books? Neuromod is the first ever real attempt at a treatment, so I would be giving Berthold Langguth a handshake for helping with Neuromod.

If you go through his profile on PubMed, he's also researched rTMS and other stimulation therapies. He's a pro, you're not. You're an incompetent fool who has a loud mouth and nobody wants to seriously deal with.

 

[JohnAdams]

Lol now Neuromod is CBT and TRT in your books? Neuromod is the first ever real attempt at a treatment, so I would be giving Berthold Langguth a handshake for helping with Neuromod.

If you go through his profile on PubMed, he's also researched rTMS and other stimulation therapies. He's a pro, you're not. You're an incompetent fool who has a loud mouth and nobody wants to seriously deal with.

Berthold Langguth was in charge of interpreting the results of a medical device trial that is manufactured by a company that he works for. How can you be okay with that? Oh yeah, because you're super smart, forgive me I forgot about that.

 

[TheDanishGirl]

The patients in the "clinically improved" and "clinically stable" groups scored statistically significantly lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion than patients in the group "clinically worsened". Our results suggest that personality is associated with tinnitus distress

You don't say! (Jeez, we can put together 2 + 2 - don't need a degree for that). Glad to see research done that makes absolutely no difference for the sufferers.

(sarcasm off)

 

[Pre55ure]

I understand the frustration behind money going into research like this and NOT towards ACTUAL cures that help. But I think that a lot of you guys are overlooking the fact that studies like this do have value.

Quick example - lets say that Neuromod groups people into 3 distinct "buckets" based on their "Big five" personality traits. One bucket is all the people that according to this study are likely to "clinically improve", another is those likely to stay "clinically neutral", and the last is those likely to "clinically worsen".

If the results of Neuromod's research get published, and the only people who improve while using it are those from the "likely to clinically improve" bucket... Well then we know it's probably worthless. That was the group expected to improve anyway. But if we see improvements in the other two groups, then it's likely that there truly is something there that works. Being able to quantify those things is valuable.

I used to do a lot of statistical modeling and regression analysis, and every piece of data that you can include that might affect the outcome, makes the model more robust and accurate.

The more accurately we are able to interpret the research, the less dead ends we go down and ultimately the less time it takes to develop a real cure.

At least that's my opinion.

 

[JohnAdams]

How do garbage studies like this get us any closer to understanding the mechanisms of tinnitus or finding a real treatment?

But I think that a lot of you guys are overlooking the fact that studies like this do have value.

No, they don't. Stop lying to yourself.

Some Loser: Well as long as there isn't a cure studies like this can help in the meantime.

Some smart person: Funding studies like this means you aren't funding curative research which slows down progress towards a cure.

Think.

About.

It.