Tinnitus (Acuphene) in the Nicaraguan adult population

Abstract

Tinnitus (tinnitus) is described by the patient as "ringing" or "whistling" "buzzing" inside the ear, which occurs without an external sound source that originates it, its real prevalence is difficult to determine, especially in our environment since the majority of the population that goes to the hospital comes for other otological and audiological causes. The objective of this research was to describe the epidemiological and clinical profile of tinnitus in the Nicaraguan population between 25 and 65 years of age attended in the outpatient clinic by the otorhinolaryngology service at the Antonio Lenín Fonseca Hospital during the period from 1 January and December 31, 2018. For this, an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out. 312 clinical records of patients diagnosed with ear pathologies were reviewed, of which 15 had a diagnosis of tinnitus associated or not with other otological pathologies; A systematic probability sampling technique was used. The information was collected using a data collection form, which was validated through a pilot test, for which 35 clinical records were reviewed. Statistical processing of variables: Age, sex, pharmacological treatment, and diagnostic tests were carried out using the IBM-SPSS® version 25.0 for Windows 7 32-bit computer program, using a descriptive analysis, expressed in frequency and percentages. The following results were obtained, 4.8% of the patients with ear pathologies presented tinnitus; the female sex was affected in 3.2%, the age most affected was between 51-59 years, patients with a single diagnosis of tinnitus did not receive any drug, they were diagnosed by otoscopy and audiometry. Persistent tinnitus represented 4.8% of the clinical findings present in the second reevaluation of the patient diagnosed with ear pathologies and 3.8% was related to persistent hearing loss. We conclude that tinnitus prevailed in 4.8% of the population group studied and accounted for 0.4% of diagnoses in the population that comes to consultation for otological involvement.