Comment on Hall et al. (2017), "How to Choose Between Measures of Tinnitus Loudness for Clinical Research? A Report on the Reliability and Validity of an Investigator-Administered Test and a Patient-Reported Measure Using Baseline Data Collected in a Phase IIa Drug Trial"

Author Response to Sabour (2018), "Comment on Hall et al. (2017), 'How to Choose Between Measures of Tinnitus Loudness for Clinical Research? A Report on the Reliability and Validity of an Investigator-Administered Test and a Patient-Reported Measure Using Baseline Data Collected in a Phase IIa Drug Trial'"

PURPOSE

The authors respond to a letter to the editor (Sabour, 2018) concerning the interpretation of validity in the context of evaluating treatment-related change in tinnitus loudness over time.

METHOD

The authors refer to several landmark methodological publications and an international standard concerning the validity of patient-reported outcome measurement instruments.

RESULTS

The tinnitus loudness rating performed better against our reported acceptability criteria for (face and convergent) validity than did the tinnitus loudness matching test.

CONCLUSION

It is important to distinguish between tests that evaluate the validity of measuring treatment-related change over time and tests that quantify the accuracy of diagnosing tinnitus as a case and non-case.