A preliminary study on the reliability of the Persian version of the tinnitus functional index in a military population

Abstract

Background and Aim: Tinnitus functional index (TFI) has been introduced as a standard self-assessment questionnaire for the evaluation of tinnitus severity and its negative consequences with enough sensitivity to detect the outcomes of treatment. The purpose of this study was to translate the original tinnitus functional index into Persian and to evaluate its reliability in a military population.

Methods: The translation was performed in accordance with the Principles of Good Practice for the Translation and Cultural Adaptation Pro­cess for Patient-Reported Outcomes Measures. 32 military and veteran men with tinnitus aged 22−74 years participated in the current study. The participants completed the Persian version of the TFI and the second re-evaluation session was conducted over the telephone 10−14 days later. Both relative and absolute reliability indices were computed.

Results: Intraclass correlation coefficient_(2,1) with consistency definition for the TFI subscales varied from good to excellent. The agreement between the TFI total scores in the evaluation and re-evaluation using Bland-Altman analysis was acceptable and only one case was not located within the limits of agreement.

Conclusion: Initial evaluation of the Persian version of TFI shows acceptable results in terms of reliability. The evaluation of the Persian TFI in different populations of patients with tinnitus and its validity would facilitate its clinical appli­cation.

Keywords: Tinnitus; questionnaire; Persian