What these tools can do

Questionnaires can help describe tinnitus impact, separate overlapping concerns, show confidence in self-management, or structure a case history. They can make a clinical conversation more specific and support consistent follow-up when the same validated measure is used over time.

What they cannot do

No questionnaire here diagnoses tinnitus, identifies its cause, replaces otoscopy or a hearing assessment, chooses treatment, or establishes disability or benefit eligibility. Scores and profiles must be interpreted alongside symptoms, hearing, medical history, and personal goals.

About the sound tools

The sound tools generate uncalibrated audio for communication, education, or exploration. They do not measure hearing, tinnitus loudness, sound pressure at the ear, or treatment response. The tone-matching tool can record the closest external pitch or noise you select, but it cannot match loudness. NICE recommends that clinicians do not offer pitch or loudness matching to assess tinnitus, so tone matching is generally not recommended as a clinical assessment and should not guide diagnosis or treatment.

Notched sound and acoustic neuromodulation are presented as experimental demonstrations, not established treatments. A pulsatile sound recreation never establishes a cause or makes pulse-synchronous tinnitus safe to ignore.

MP3 files are encoded locally with the open-source lamejs encoder, distributed separately under the LGPL-3.0 license. Read the bundled encoder license.

Scoring rule

If a source provides a score, TinniTest implements that rule and states when no diagnostic or severity bands have been validated. THS, the Tinnitus Screener, SMRT, TSCHQ, and ESIT-SQ retain their conversation, screening, or profiling context. TinniTest does not create cutoffs for them.

Reproduction rights

Public domain: THS and the updated Tinnitus Screener have explicit public-domain support. Permission-free: PhenX states that THI may be used without permission; THI-S derives from that instrument. SMRT's first six adapted items derive from a scale explicitly free to use without permission, and the complete form is distributed by VA NCRAR. CC BY 4.0: FiveQ, TIQ, TQIQ, and iTICQ retain attribution and license links. Freely available with citation: the ESIT-SQ authors explicitly invite research-community use with citation. TRI distributes TSCHQ as its consensus case-history form.

“Free to read” and “noncommercial” are not treated as reproduction licenses. TFI, TQ/Mini-TQ, TRQ, and TPFQ remain linked resources when a sufficient public reproduction grant has not been verified.

Independence

TinniTest.org is independently operated. Citations identify provenance and do not imply affiliation, sponsorship, approval, or endorsement by authors, publishers, universities, VA, DoD, NICE, or any other source.

Primary references

Questionnaire, rights, and sound-tool sources

These primary or official-host sources support the forms, scoring, reproduction decisions, safety boundaries, and evidence summaries.

NIDCD: Tinnitus Symptoms, evaluation, and evidence-based management
NIDCD: Sudden deafness Why sudden hearing loss is a medical emergency
NICE NG155: Tinnitus Referral, assessment, and questionnaire recommendations
VA/DoD tinnitus guideline Validated outcome measures and clinical context
OHSU: TFI licensing and copyright Copyright owner, licensing terms, and permission request
Newman et al.: THI development Original THI validation paper
PhenX Toolkit: THI protocol English protocol; listed as freely available without permission for use
Meikle et al.: TFI development Original TFI development and validation study
U.S. Copyright Office: Fair use Why non-commercial status alone does not determine permission
VA NCRAR: Tinnitus questionnaires and rights TFI permission route and THS public-domain status
VA NCRAR: Current THS form and instructions Official questionnaire, clinician workflow, and warning against cutoff-based candidacy decisions
Henry et al.: THS validation Original validation paper hosted by VA NCRAR; doi:10.1044/2014_AJA-14-0042
Connell et al. FiveQ development and validation Clinical Otolaryngology (2023), doi:10.1111/coa.13973 · CC BY 4.0
Handscomb et al. TIQ development and validation PLOS ONE (2024), doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0302837 · CC BY 4.0
Manchaiah et al. TQIQ development and validation Clinical Practice (2025), doi:10.3390/clinpract15050087 · CC BY 4.0
Smith et al. iTICQ development Frontiers in Audiology and Otology (2024), doi:10.3389/fauot.2023.1323864 · CC BY 4.0
Thielman et al. Tinnitus Screener reliability American Journal of Audiology (2023), doi:10.1044/2022_AJA-22-00140 · Public domain
Newman, Sandridge & Bolek: THI screening version Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (2008), doi:10.3766/jaaa.19.4.6 · Permission-free use
VA NCRAR: SMRT questionnaire and handbook supplement VA National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research (2010) · Permission-free basis
Tinnitus Research Initiative: official TSCHQ Based on the TRI 2006 consensus; Langguth et al., 2007 · Permission-free clinical use
Genitsaridi et al. ESIT-SQ technical note Hearing Research 377 (2019), 353–359 · Freely available with citation
Tinnitus tone matching: NICE recommendation 1.4.5 Do not offer psychoacoustic pitch or loudness matching to assess tinnitus.
Tinnitus tone matching: Henry et al. pitch-matching comparison Repeated matches can span a wide range; reporting a range may be preferable to one pitch.
Notched sound generator: 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis Notched music did not significantly outperform ordinary music for tinnitus distress.
Notched sound generator: 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis Reported possible benefits across small heterogeneous studies; the conflict reinforces that efficacy remains uncertain.
Notched sound generator: Stein et al. randomized trial Primary outcomes did not show an effect; later findings were mixed.
Acoustic neuromodulation: RESET2 double-blind trial The device was not superior to placebo on the primary outcome; this is a key reason the tool is experimental.
Acoustic neuromodulation: Acoustic CR systematic review Review describing limited and methodologically uncertain evidence.
Pulsatile sound matcher: NICE tinnitus recommendations Referral and imaging recommendations for pulsatile tinnitus.
Pulsatile sound matcher: Clinical evaluation study Pulsatile tinnitus can have vascular and non-vascular causes requiring clinical evaluation.
Noise generator: WHO safe listening Listening risk depends on sound level, duration, and frequency of exposure.
Noise generator: NICE tinnitus guidance Evidence-based assessment and management recommendations.

Content reviewed August 1, 2026.

Useful tools,kept in perspective.