Objective: To our knowledge, there is no published study investigating the characteristics of people experiencing tinnitus in Albania. Such a study would be important, providing the basis for further research in this region and contributing to a wider understanding of tinnitus heterogeneity across different geographic locations. The main objective of this study was to develop an Albanian translation of a standardised questionnaire for tinnitus research, namely the European School for Interdisciplinary Tinnitus Research-Screening Questionnaire (ESIT-SQ). A secondary objective was to assess its applicability and usefulness by conducting an exploratory survey on a small sample of the Albanian tinnitus population.
Design and study sample: Three translators were recruited to create the Albanian ESIT-SQ translation following good practice guidelines. Using this questionnaire, data from 107 patients attending otolaryngology clinics in Albania were collected.
Results: Participants reporting various degrees of tinnitus symptom severity had distinct phenotypic characteristics. Application of a random forest approach on this preliminary dataset showed that self-reported hearing difficulty, and tinnitus duration, pitch and temporal manifestation were important variables for predicting tinnitus symptom severity.
Conclusions: Our study provided an Albanian translation of the ESIT-SQ and demonstrated that it is a useful tool for tinnitus profiling and subgrouping.
Keywords: Albania; ESIT-SQ; classification models; questionnaire; tinnitus heterogeneity; translation.