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THS guided conversation worksheet

Tinnitus and Hearing Survey (THS)

A short worksheet for separating tinnitus-related difficulty from hearing difficulty and opening a careful conversation about sound tolerance.

Questions
9
Time
≈ 3 min
Privacy
Local only
Clinician-guided worksheet—not a diagnosis. The THS authors strongly discourage using cutoff scores to decide treatment candidacy. This page only organizes a conversation. Sources and rights.
A

Tinnitus

Problems that can be related to tinnitus rather than hearing difficulty.

01Over the last week, tinnitus kept me from sleeping.
02Over the last week, tinnitus kept me from concentrating on reading.
03Over the last week, tinnitus kept me from relaxing.
04Over the last week, I couldn’t get my mind off of my tinnitus.
B

Hearing

Problems that can reflect hearing difficulty rather than tinnitus itself.

05Over the last week, I couldn’t understand what others were saying in noisy or crowded places.
06Over the last week, I couldn’t understand what people were saying on TV or in movies.
07Over the last week, I couldn’t understand people with soft voices.
08Over the last week, I couldn’t understand what was being said in group conversations.
C

Sound tolerance

A prompt for discussing sounds that feel unusually loud or uncomfortable.

09Over the last week, sounds were too loud or uncomfortable for me when they seemed normal to others around me.

Examples to discuss

If you chose 1–4, list up to two sounds that feel too loud or uncomfortable to you but seem normal to others. Examples help a clinician understand the concern; this site does not label it.

If the issue occurs only while wearing hearing aids, tell your audiologist.

Ready when all nine ratings are answered

Prepare a clinician summary

Section totals are shown separately. The site will not compare them, apply a cutoff, or name a sound-tolerance condition.

About this measure

The THS was developed to help clinicians and patients distinguish tinnitus-related problems from hearing difficulties and begin discussing sound tolerance. Its official instructions say it is most effective as a collaborative conversation and strongly discourage cutoff scores for treatment candidacy.

Attribution and rights. VA NCRAR states that the THS was developed by U.S. federal employees, is not copyrighted, and is available in the public domain. Validation: Henry JA, Griest S, Zaugg TL, Thielman E, Kaelin C, Galvez G, and Carlson KF (2015), doi:10.1044/2014_AJA-14-0042. TinniTest.org is independent; this adaptation is not affiliated with or endorsed by the authors, VA, or DoD.