Development of the Tinnitus Response Scales: Factor analyses, subscale reliability and validity analyses

Abstract

Objective: Patients suffering with tinnitus are often advised to accept the noise, but few studies have examined what tinnitus acceptance entails. The present project developed and tested a new instrument to assess the mindfulness-based constructs of acceptance, control, and defeat, in relation to the experience of chronic tinnitus. Method: Initial scale development involved an expert panel. Participants were recruited from the general population and tinnitus support organizations and complete the first version of the Tinnitus Response Scales (TRS) and measures of tinnitus coping, severity and distress, general distress, illness cognitions, and tinnitus and health characteristics. Results: Three interpretable TRS factors were found: acceptance, control and defeat (an Internet sample, N = 273) and confirmed using another sample (hard-copy sample, N = 278). Factors were shown to have high internal consistency and test-retest reliabilities and differed in terms of their related cognitions, behaviour, and emotional responses to tinnitus, and their tinnitus characteristics. Conclusion: The TRS factors provide an alternative conceptualisation of tinnitus responding. TRS is a brief psychometrically valid measure of tinnitus responding that appears to distinguish between adaptive and non-adaptive responses to tinnitus noise, and should prove useful as a clinical measure.