Correlation Between Tinnitus Loudness and Experienced Distress

[Frédéric]

Psychosocial consequences of the loudness of tinnitus

Introduction:
Tinnitus distress is associated with the perceived loudness of the tinnitus.

Objectives:
To evaluate the psychosocial problems in tinnitus patients and to explore any relation with the tinnitus loudness.Design: From all patients who were treated in our clinic from January 2017 to September 2019 for their tinnitus, patients chart and a questionnaire with the psychosocial variables were studied retrospectively.

Results:
Almost half of the tinnitus patients could not withstand their tinnitus and they were faced with disturbed concentration and feeling depressed. Psychosocial problems were related to the maximal loudness of the tinnitus. If the perceived maximal loudness of the tinnitus was above 73 millimetre on the visual analogue scale the prevalence of psychosocial problems raised. If it was above 83 millimetre the majority of these patients had psychosocial problems.

Conclusion:
Psychosocial problems were related to the maximal loudness of the tinnitus. We recommend patients suffering from severe tinnitus distress that therapy should be aimed at a reduction of the maximal loudness of tinnitus to less than 73 mm on the visual analogue scale.

 

[GregCA]

Conclusion: Psychosocial problems were related to the maximal loudness of the tinnitus. We recommend patients suffering from severe tinnitus distress that therapy should be aimed at a reduction of the maximal loudness of tinnitus to less than 73 mm on the visual analogue scale. ​

Well that's the discovery of the century.

 

[JohnAdams]

"Conclusion: Psychosocial problems were related to the maximal loudness of the tinnitus. We recommend patients suffering from severe tinnitus distress that therapy should be aimed at a reduction of the maximal loudness of tinnitus to less than 73 mm on the visual analogue scale."

How in the world do they plan on doing that?

 

[Gabriel5050]

In other news, water is actually wet.
Seriously we keep telling people it's torture. How many tests like this do we need? How about actual solutions?

 

[Autumnly]

As sad as it is, this study is actually a breath of fresh air after all the "tinnitus is never debilitating in itself, it's just your emotional reaction"-stuff I've seen, for example from the University of Maastricht.

 

[GregCA]

As sad as it is, this study is actually a breath of fresh air after all the "tinnitus is never debilitating in itself, it's just your emotional reaction"-stuff I've seen, for example from the University of Maastricht.

I agree. It's weird that you'd need a study to state the obvious, but at least we now have scientific material that can substantiate what we claim.

The slightly infuriating part of the study though is the recommendation to undergo treatment to reduce the volume: "Yes, thanks! We hadn't thought of that!"

 

[Autumnly]

Does anyone have access to the full study?

Evaluation of a Cognitive Behavioral Model of Tinnitus Distress
A Cross-Sectional Study Using Structural Equation Modeling
Handscomb, Lucy; Shorter, Gillian W.; Hoare, Derek J.; Hall, Deborah A.

Abstract
Objectives:
There is a great deal of variation in the extent to which people with tinnitusfind it distressing, which cannot be explained solely by differences in perceived loudness. The Cognitive Behavioral Model of Tinnitus Distress proposes that tinnitus becomes and is maintained as a distressing problem due to a process of interaction between negative thoughts, negative emotions, attention and monitoring, safety behavior, and beliefs. This study used path analysis to assess how well different configurations of this model fit using questionnaire data obtained from people with tinnitus.

Design:
This was a cross-sectional study. 342 members of the public with tinnitus volunteered to complete a survey comprising a series of questionnaires and subscales of questionnaires measuring each of the constructs contained within the Cognitive Behavioral Model of TinnitusDistress. The optimum factor structure of each measure for the study population was established, and the resulting factors were used to construct a series of path models based on the theoretical model. Path analysis was conducted for each of these, and the goodness of fit of the models was assessed using established fit criteria.

Results:
Five of the six path models tested reached the threshold for adequate fit, and further modifications improved the fit of the three most parsimonious of these. The two best-fitting models had comparable fit indices which approached the criteria for good fit (Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.061, Comparative Fit Index = 0.984, Tucker Lewis Index = 0.970 and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = 0.055, Comparative Fit Index = 0.993, Tucker Lewis Index = 0.982). They differed principally in the placement of tinnitus magnitude and the inclusion/noninclusion of control beliefs.

Conclusions:
There are theoretical arguments to support both a beliefs-driven and a loudness-driven model, and it may be that different configurations of the Cognitive Behavioral Model of Tinnitus Distress are more appropriate to different groups of people with tinnitus. Further investigation of this is needed. This notwithstanding, the present study provides empirical support for a model of tinnitus distress which provides a clinical framework for the development of more effective psychological therapy.

 

[DaveFromChicago]

To Autumnly:

Thanks very much for posting this.

Once again, a veritable thicket of psychotherapeutic verbiage that is so distressingly identical
to the timeworn "Just Learn to Live With It" advice.
A "clinical framework for the development of more effective psychological therapy"?
What more can be deduced from such previously, exhaustively "researched psychological therapies"?

Twenty years into the 21st Century and we are still presented with such stupefyingly banal directives.

A few days ago it was my one year anniversary of posting on this Site, and I am so heartbreakingly aware of how many respondents like Allan1967 ultimately (and in spite of years of truly heroic resistance) succumbed to this monstrous malady.

Occasionally I feel outraged that the entire Medical Research Community has so woefully neglected this condition, which in its severe form is tantamount to a terminal illness.
(As a side note, three weeks ago I had another hearing test and ENT Doctor visit. I asked when there might be a genuinely effective treatment for this, and he replied "in about one hundred years" as he left the examination room.
While driving home, it occurred to me that I should have asked why this appointment was scheduled at all since it was therefore pointless and seriously undermining from the standpoint of personal morale. I also wondered if he makes $500.00 per hour in blithely dispensing such commentary to scores of tinnitus sufferers ).