Big Five Personality Traits are Associated with Tinnitus Improvement Over Time

Previous studies have shown that personality traits are related to tinnitus distress as measured by the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ). However, little is known about the role of personality on tinnitus distress over time. We collected the THI and the TQ of 388 patients who visited a tertiary tinnitus clinic between 2012 and 2017, and who filled in a survey with the same questionnaires plus the Big Five Index 2 in 2018. We used personality traits and facets to predict tinnitus distress cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, age and gender were significant predictors of the THI and TQ scores in cross-sectional linear regression setups. Next, based on previous literature, we clustered patients in three groups based in the difference THI and TQ between the two assessments: “clinically improved”, “clinically stable” and “clinically worsened”. The patients in the “clinically improved” and “clinically stable” groups scored statistically significantly lower in neuroticism and higher in extraversion than patients in the group “clinically worsened”. Our results suggest that personality is associated with tinnitus distress over time and could be used to statistically distinguish patient groups with clinically relevant changes of tinnitus distress.