The etiological tinnitus models propose that suffering can be caused and aggravated by heightened physiological arousal. Therefore
psychophysiological treatments are applied. Stability of the measured parameters is essential for the use of biofeedback as
well as to permit the attribution of changes to the administered treatment. The aim of our study was to investigate the 3-month
reproducibility of psychophysiological parameters in 60 tinnitus patients. Using a repeated-measures design, the activity
of these parameters was assessed twice during various stress and relaxation trials. The results showed that the measurements
of frontalis, masseter and trapezius muscles were stable, while for the sternocleidomastoid, the skin conductance level (SCL)
and the skin temperature retest-stability could not be evidenced. For all parameters, test–retest stability was weak for the
relative scores. In conclusion, our study has important implications for applied psychophysiology research: (1) the measurement
of EMG assessed in a clinical sample is stable over a 3-month interval; (2) in contrast, the measurements of SCL and skin
temperature as well as all relative scores are less stable; and (3) the stability of EMG-parameters in our sample gives first
hints that physiological changes can be attributed to an administered biofeedback treatment but further research is required.
Keywords Stability - Psychophysiological parameters - Surface-EMG - Tinnitus
The trial protocol has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the German Federation of Psychological Associations (DGPs)
and meets the ethical standards of the Declaration of Helsinki.
This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00397007.