Validating the Turkish version of the Weinstein noise sensitivity scale: effects of age, sex, and education level

Abstract

Background/aim: Subjective noise sensitivity (SNS) is not only one of the most important predictors of perceived noise annoyancefor the subjects exposed to the noise, but also strongly related with some psychological conditions and poor health perception of thesubjects. Weinstein’s Noise Sensitivity Scale (WNSS) is widely used for measuring of SNS.Materials and methods: In this study we adapted WNSS to Turkish (Tr-WNSS) and evaluated its psychometric properties and effect ofage, sex and education level on SNS.Results: The study included 105 males and 105 female subjects between 18 and 55 years of age.Conclusion: Our data demonstrated that Tr-WNSS was a reliable, valid, and invariant scale for the Turkish population, and not affectedby sex, age and education level.