Background: Tinnitus in children and adolescents is relatively unexplored territory. The available literature is limited and the reported prevalence of tinnitus varies widely. The impact on daily life seems to be lower than in the adult population. Better understanding of tinnitus in children and its impact on daily life could provide more insight in the actual size of the problem and could give direction for future studies to investigate the cause of progression of tinnitus.
methods: A cross-sectional study was performed using the Dutch LifeLines population-based cohort of people living in the north of the Netherlands. A total of 4964 children (4- 12 years of age) and 2506 adolescents (13-17 years of age) were included. Tinnitus suffering and behavioral outcomes were assessed with a single item question and the Child Behavioral Checklist or the Youth Self Report questionnaire respectively. The associations of behavioral outcomes and tinnitus suffering were analyzed using univariate binary regressions.
Results: The prevalence of tinnitus suffering in children was 3.3% and 12.8% in adolescents. 0.3% of the children and 1.9% of the adolescents suffered a lot or extremely of their tinnitus. Externalizing and Internalizing problems were associated with tinnitus in adolescents. Internalizing problems were associated with tinnitus in children.
Conclusions: The prevalence of tinnitus suffering in this sample of the general population is comparable to other population based studies. A low percentage of children (0.3%) or adolescents (1.9%) suffered a lot or extremely of their tinnitus. Tinnitus suffering is associated with all behavioral outcome subscales in adolescents and with internalizing problems in children, although the effect sizes were very small. Future research should focus on achieving a consensus for the definition of pediatric tinnitus and the development of an outcome measure to investigate the different domains of symptoms experienced by children and adolescents.
Key-words; Tinnitus, children, adolescents, behavior, internalizing problems, externalizing problems, impact on daily life
Key points
* Tinnitus in children and adolescents is relatively unexplored territory. The available literature is limited and the reported prevalence of tinnitus varies widely.
* The prevalence of tinnitus suffering in children was 3.3% and 12.8% in adolescents in this population based study. 0.3% of the children and 1.9% of the adolescents suffered a lot or extremely of their tinnitus
* Tinnitus suffering is associated with all behavioral outcome subscales in adolescents and with internalizing problems in children, although the effect sizes were very small.
* Future research should focus on achieving a consensus for the definition of pediatric tinnitus and the development of a pediatric tinnitus questionnaire to investigate the different domains of symptoms experienced by children and adolescents.