Identifying Tinnitus Subgroups With Cluster Analysis

The University of Iowa, Iowa City William Noble The University of Iowa, Iowa City, and University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia Anne Gehringer and Stephanie Gogel The University of Iowa, Iowa City Contact author: Richard Tyler, The University of Iowa, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa C...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of audiology 2008-12, Vol.17 (2), p.S176-S184
Main Authors: Tyler, Richard, Coelho, Claudia, Tao, Pan, Ji, Haihong, Noble, William, Gehringer, Anne, Gogel, Stephanie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Care and treatment
Clinical trials
Cluster Analysis
Control Groups
Development and progression
Diagnosis
Diagnosis, Differential
Ear diseases
Etiology
Hearing loss
Humans
Medical imaging
Methods
Multivariate Analysis
Patients
Psychoacoustics
Questionnaires
Selection Criteria
Sound Spectrography
Statistical Analysis
Surveys and Questionnaires
Tinnitus
Tinnitus - classification
Tinnitus - diagnosis
Tinnitus - etiology
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Summary:The University of Iowa, Iowa City William Noble The University of Iowa, Iowa City, and University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia Anne Gehringer and Stephanie Gogel The University of Iowa, Iowa City Contact author: Richard Tyler, The University of Iowa, 200 Hawkins Drive, Iowa City, IA 52242. E-mail: rich-tyler{at}uiowa.edu . Purpose: We believe it is important to uncover tinnitus subgroups to identify subsets of patients most likely to benefit from different treatments. We review strategies for subgrouping based on etiology, subjective reports, the audiogram, psychoacoustics, imaging, and cluster analysis. Method: Preliminary results of a 2-step cluster analysis based on 246 participants from whom we had 26 categorical and 25 continuous variables were determined. Results: A 4-cluster solution suggested the following subgroups: (a) constant distressing tinnitus, (b) varying tinnitus that is worse in noise, (c) tinnitus patients who are copers and whose tinnitus is not influenced by touch (somatic modulation), and (d) tinnitus patients who are copers but whose tinnitus is worse in quiet environments. Conclusions: Subgroups of tinnitus patients can be identified by using statistical approaches. The subgroups we identify here represent a preliminary attempt at identifying such patients. One next step would be to explore clinical trials of tinnitus treatments based on subgroup analyses or on using subgroups in the selection criteria. Key Words: tinnitus, subgroups, cluster analysis CiteULike     Connotea     Del.icio.us     Digg     Facebook     Reddit     Technorati     Twitter     What's this?
ISSN:1059-0889
1558-9137
DOI:10.1044/1059-0889(2008/07-0044)