Tinnitus Among Patients With Anxiety Disorder: A Nationwide Longitudinal Study

OBJECTIVES: The association between tinnitus and anxiety disorder remains debated. We used a retrospective cohort study to investigate the relationship between anxiety disorder and tinnitus, aiming to decipher possible risk factors for tinnitus in patients with anxiety disorder. METHOD: Data on a total of 7,525 patients with anxiety disorder and 15,050 patients without (comparison cohort) were extracted from the Longitudinal Health Insurance Database 2005 in Taiwan. The Kaplan–Meier estimator with the log rank test and the Cox proportional-hazard regression model were used to compare the incidence of tinnitus in both groups and to identify risk factors that predicted tinnitus. RESULTS: After adjusting for related covariates, the hazard ratio for the development of tinnitus during the follow-up period was 3.54 (95% confidence interval: 3.11–4.02, P < .001) for anxiety disorder cohort relative to comparison cohort. Age ≧ 60 years, female sex, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia were statistically significant predictive risk factors of tinnitus in patients with anxiety disorder. CONCLUSION: A significant increase in the lifetime incidence of tinnitus was exhibited in patients with anxiety disorder. Elderly subjects, female sex, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia were risk factors. Clinicians should be alert to the possibility of tinnitus in subjects with anxiety disorder.