Analysis of quality of life of seniors with tinnitus' symptoms

Abstract

Introduction: Tinnitus is a common complaint in the elderly. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the quality of life of seniors' people with symptoms of tinnitus by verifying the variation of sex and age's influence. Method: A prospective study. Thirty-six seniors' people have compounded the sample. Initially, an interview was conducted in order to obtain individuals socio demographics data. The tool WHOQOL-OLD was used; it was prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assess the quality of life of seniors. The average age of our sample was 68.67 ± 6.84 years. Regarding gender were 26 (72.2%) elderly women and 10 (27.78%) were male. Results: Most of them have classified their tinnitus as weak (44.4%) or moderate (36.1%) and reported feeling worsening of tinnitus at night (47.2%). The results demonstrate that tinnitus is not affecting the quality of life in this sample. The excellent scores of the WHOQOL-old show values next to the maximum punctuation. When the scores were analyzed by sex, it was verified that except for the facet death/dying, this variable did not influence the quality of life of valued seniors. Conclusion: The results of this study have pointed that quality of life of valued seniors is maintained despite the presence of tinnitus, contradicting the findings of the literature. There was no relationship between quality of life and gender' variables and loudness sensation of tinnitus.

Keywords

• Seniors
• Tinnitus
• Quality of Life