Objectives: To study the prevalence of tinnitus, its characteristic and its association with anxiety and depression among active-duty army personnel and veterans. This study also wants to determine the correlation of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) with Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS) among active-duty army personnel and veterans at Hospital Angkatan Tentera Tuanku Mizan.
Materials and methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Department of Hospital Angkatan Tentera Tuanku Mizan from January 2020 until June 2021, involving active-duty army personnel and veterans with at least 3 years of service. Those patients who fulfilled inclusion and exclusion criteria were recruited. Their feedback was recorded based on Malay version of Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and Malay version of Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS).
Results: 106 subjects responded to our questionnaires, (51 active-duty army personnel and 55 veterans) in which 4.7% (n=5) reported to have anxiety and none had depression. Overall mean score for Total THI was 27.66, suggesting that majority of our subjects only felt mild handicap due to their tinnitus. Individual THI subdomain mean scores shows that the functional subdomain (17.79) affects subjects the most as compared to the emotional (5.7) and catastrophic scores (4.21).
Conclusion: Tinnitus can occur in all degrees of hearing loss, and it is associated with poor functional THI scores. Tinnitus is associated with anxiety but not depression among army personnel. These findings suggest that tinnitus should be addressed by healthcare providers in the military in order to maximise function and Quality of Life (QOL) among the nation's military personnel.
Keywords: Active-duty army personnel; Anxiety; Depression; Hearing loss; Tinnitus; Veterans.