Journal of Community Medicine & Health Education
Open Access

Research Article

Prevalence of Tinnitus among Nigerians

Adegbenro CA¹, Amusa YB², Ijadunola IKT¹ and Adeyemo A^3*

¹Department of Community health, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria

²Otorhinolaryngology Unit, Department of Surgery, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria

³ENT Surgery Unit, Department of Surgery, Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Complex. Ile -Ife, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author:

Adekunle Adeyemo
ENT Surgery Unit, Department of Surgery
Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital
Ile Ife, Nigeria
Tel: +2438036701170
E-mail: kunleirie@yahoo.co.uk

Received date: December 19, 2012; Accepted date: March 20, 2013; Published date: March 24, 2013

Citation: Adegbenro CA, Amusa YB, Ijadunola IKT, Adeyemo A (2013) Prevalence of Tinnitus among Nigerians. J Community Med Health Educ 3:200. doi: 10.4172/2161-0711.1000200

Copyright: © 2013 Adegbenro CA, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Tinnitus is a common problem worldwide affecting about 17% of the American population. However there is dearth of information on the prevalence of this problem among the blacks in the developing countries.
Objective: To establish the prevalence of tinnitus among Nigerians, the result of which can be used as a baseline for future intervention study.
Study Design: A Descriptive cross-sectional survey.
Study Location: Ife central Local Government area of Osun State, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. This has a total estimated population of 150,580 made up of 79623 males and 70967 females living in 11 wards.
Subjects and Methods: The subjects for the study were volunteered 1000 aged 15 years and above. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select the subjects. The instrument for the data collection was a close-ended questionnaire that elicited information on demographic and history of tinnitus from the sample population. The data were collected between January and March, 2006. Data analysis was done by using the statistical package for social science (SPSS version 11). The results  were presented using, descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation and test of associations.
Results: There were 413 (41.3%) females and 587 (58.7%) males. Forty nine percent of the respondents were in the 3rd – 4th decade of life, and are of the Yoruba ethnic stalk. Tinnitus was reported in 61 (6.1%) of respondents. Tinnitus was found to be most prevalent in age group 45 years and above with a prevalence of 14.3%. Male preponderance was found with a prevalence rate of 3.9%. It was also found to be more prevalent among farmers 33.0% while the lowest prevalence was found among the civil servants and students. The severe type of tinnitus was found in 0.01% of the studied population. Bilaterality was found in 33 (54.1%) and tinnitus was associated with ear diseases in 21 (34.4%) of the affected population.
Conclusion: The prevalence of tinnitus among the Nigerians of the Yoruba stalk in this study is low. It was found to be more among men, and the prevalence was found to rise with advancing age. It is of the less severe type, and it was associated with ear diseases in over a third of the affected population.

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