Development and standardization of tinnitus handicap inventory in Kannada

Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) was developed in English to quantify the handicap caused due to tinnitus. According to a survey conducted by USA, 40 million people are affected by tinnitus.

India being a multilingual country needs to develop and standardize THI in Indian languages. The present study concentrates on Developing and Standardizing THI in Kannada.

Questions from English version of THI were translated and modified by two professionals who have a degree of MA Kannada. Translated inventory was given to 50 native Kannada speakers for the familiarity check & the most familiar sentences were included in the study. Tinnitus questionnaire was then administered, followed by the Kannada version of THI on 140 patients and total scores were obtained.

Analysis revealed 14% of the patients fall under the category of Slight, 38% under Mild, 26% under Moderate, 16% under Severe and 6% under Catastrophic group. An item total correlation and Cronbach-alpha test was administered to examine the reliability measures and the scores were 0.883 and 0.885 on standardized item.

Scores of Cronbach-alpha test shows that Kannada version of THI is a standard and reliable tool for measuring the handicap caused by tinnitus and can successfully classify individuals on a severity basis.