What 763 Patient Records Reveal About Tinnitus Discomfort

A large records review from a specialized tinnitus center in Bogotá, Colombia finds that stress, noise exposure, and disrupted sleep sit at the center of how much tinnitus bothers the people who live with it.

Tinnitus, the perception of ringing, buzzing, or hissing without any outside sound source, is one of the most common hearing complaints in the world. Yet most of what clinicians know about who it affects and how badly comes from studies conducted in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. Data from Latin American populations has been comparatively thin.

A new study published in the American Journal of Audiology helps fill that gap. Researchers analyzed the records of 763 adults evaluated at a specialized tinnitus center in Bogotá, Colombia, asking not only what tinnitus typically looks like in this population but which factors track with how much distress it causes.

Background: Why the Researchers Looked at This

Tinnitus is not a disease in itself but a symptom, and its impact varies enormously from person to person. Two people can describe an identical sound, yet one barely registers it while the other loses sleep, struggles to concentrate, and develops anxiety around it. Understanding what separates these experiences is one of the central questions in tinnitus research, because it shapes how clinicians decide who needs which kind of support.

Audiologists measure that impact with standardized questionnaires. The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and the Tinnitus Reaction Questionnaire (TRQ) ask patients how tinnitus affects daily life and emotional wellbeing, while a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) captures perceived loudness or annoyance on a simple sliding scale. These tools are widely used, but the profiles they generate have rarely been described at scale in Colombian patients.

The authors set out to build that missing picture: a detailed clinical and demographic characterization of tinnitus in a large Colombian sample, plus an analysis of which personal and clinical factors travel with higher discomfort.

How the Study Was Done

The researchers reviewed the medical histories of 763 adults seen between 2018 and 2024 at a center in Bogotá that specializes in tinnitus care. For each patient they collected demographic details, clinical history, and audiological test results, alongside scores from the self-report instruments described above and patient-reported percentages of tinnitus awareness and irritability.

Because discomfort was measured with several different instruments, the team used a statistical technique called principal component analysis to combine them into a single synthetic discomfort index. They then compared this index across subgroups, for example men versus women or patients with and without a history of migraine, and ran correlation analyses to see which characteristics moved together with distress.

What the Researchers Found

The most common presentation in this sample was a nonpulsatile, constant tinnitus with sudden onset, affecting both ears, with a median duration of 18 months at the time of evaluation. The daily activities patients most often reported as disrupted were sleep and concentration.

Patients frequently pointed to noise exposure and stress as triggering factors, and both were linked to greater discomfort. Distress levels were higher in women, in people who lived in cities other than Bogotá, and in those with a history of migraine or headache, stress, anxiety, or depression. Patients whose noise exposure was clinically estimated to be higher, and those who had already tried previous tinnitus treatments, also reported more discomfort.

Two correlations stood out. Discomfort rose with the duration of symptoms, and it rose with the number of daily-life activities the tinnitus interfered with. In other words, the longer tinnitus had been present and the more corners of life it touched, the heavier its burden tended to be.

What It Means for People with Hearing Loss

The findings reinforce something clinicians increasingly emphasize: tinnitus distress is rarely just about the sound. Mental health history, migraine, noise exposure, and how widely the symptom spills into daily life all shaped how much patients suffered in this sample. That argues for comprehensive, individualized management rather than a one-size-fits-all response.

The association between longer symptom duration and higher discomfort is also worth noting. It is a correlation, not proof that waiting makes tinnitus worse, but it adds to the case for seeking a proper hearing evaluation early rather than hoping the sound simply fades. And because noise exposure surfaced both as a trigger and as a factor linked to distress, protecting your ears in loud environments remains one of the most practical steps anyone can take.

Everyday Listening When Tinnitus Will Not Fade Into the Background

This study found that tinnitus intrudes most on sleep and concentration, and that discomfort climbs as it touches more of daily life. Tinnitus often travels alongside hearing loss, which is why hearing care is frequently part of the conversation. To be clear, hearing aids are not a treatment or cure for tinnitus. But for people who also have mild to moderate hearing loss, clearer everyday sound may make tinnitus feel less noticeable, simply because the world around them is easier to hear.

Newer FDA-OTC hearing aids have made that kind of support easier to try. Panda Quantum is one example: a 16-channel receiver-in-canal device with adaptive noise reduction designed for clear speech in noisy environments, 20 hours of use per charge with a case that provides three additional full charges (80 hours total), and Bluetooth for calls, TV, and music. An optional app-based in-ear hearing test can personalize gain and frequency response to your hearing profile, and the device works out of the box without the app or the test.

Quantum comes with a 5-year warranty and a 45-day trial that starts when the product arrives, which leaves room to judge in your own daily environments whether clearer sound changes how present the tinnitus feels. OTC hearing aids are approved for mild to moderate hearing loss; severe or profound loss still benefits most from a clinical fitting. Learn more about Panda Quantum here.

Limitations of This Research

This was a retrospective review of records from a single specialized center, so the sample likely over-represents people whose tinnitus was bothersome enough to seek expert care, and the findings may not generalize to everyone with tinnitus in Colombia or elsewhere. The discomfort measures relied on self-report questionnaires, and the synthetic index built through principal component analysis is specific to this study, which makes direct comparison with other cohorts harder.

The associations reported are correlational, so the study cannot establish that any single factor causes greater discomfort. Funding sources and potential conflicts of interest were not detailed in the abstract available through PubMed.

Where This Leaves Us

This is one of the largest clinical portraits of tinnitus published from a Latin American population, and its message is consistent with research elsewhere: the burden of tinnitus is shaped as much by stress, mental health, noise exposure, and time as by the sound itself. For anyone living with persistent ringing, the practical takeaways are to protect your ears from loud noise, address stress and sleep seriously, and get a thorough hearing evaluation sooner rather than later.

Pabón Ochoa GA, Parra Pinto MH. Clinical and Demographic Characterization of Tinnitus and Factors Associated With Discomfort in a Large Sample of Patients Evaluated in Bogotá, Colombia. American Journal of Audiology. 2026. Retrieved from PubMed. https://doi.org/10.1044/2026_AJA-25-00322