Study on the Lived Experience of Tinnitus Exacerbated by Sound

[Benjamin Greenberg]

Here's my latest study, the first follow up to my dissertation. Thanks much to everyone from Tinnitus Talk who participated!!!

http://www.thepractitionerscholar.com/article/view/17961/11874

Loss, Meaning Making, and Reconstruction of Narratives in Adults Enduring Tinnitus Exacerbated by Exposure to Sound ​

Benjamin Greenberg
American School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University, San Francisco

Korie Leigh
Mills College, Oakland CA

Abstract:​

Tinnitus is an auditory processing disorder involving frequently distressing levels of sound perception without corresponding external stimuli. In many cases, a complicating factor is the exacerbation of tinnitus intensity and pain following exposure to even moderate sounds, which can profoundly impact mental health and quality of life. Although more detrimental to patient suffering and more challenging to treat clinically, the experience of tinnitus exacerbated by sound is still poorly understood, as are implications for clinical practice and counseling. Considering that millions of people worldwide suffer from tinnitus and heightened auditory sensitivity to the point of disability, this qualitative study sought to identify relevant factors in encountering this complex disorder in clinical and counseling work. Thematic analysis of 418 unique open-ended question responses revealed themes of loss, psychological impact, inadequate understanding, crises of meaning, and solutions. Psychological interventions and the evidence basis of various theoretical methodologies are discussed.

Keywords: tinnitus, hyperacusis, sound-sensitive tinnitus, mental health, quality of life, counseling, clinical psychology, psychotherapy

 

[Steve]

Hi Benjamin,

Thank you for coming back and posting this, some really good work there and an interesting read.

Is it easy for you to summarise here in a few paragraphs some of the findings? I'm thinking of a lay summary that also discusses where you think we can build on this study and what more you feel you would like to learn after the analysis.

 

[Benjamin Greenberg]

Hi Steve, thanks! I'll do my best:

Basically, I reviewed and analyzed 418 responses from over 300 participants, and found that the experience of tinnitus made worse by sound can be characterized by themes of loss, isolation, psychosocial impact, communication difficulty and lack of understanding from important people in their environment (ie., family, work, doctors). In the course of my dissertation researching this specific condition, I named it the 'sound-sensitive tinnitus' subtype.

Due to lack of available care, individuals enduring this disorder are forced to be inventive and creative in seeking solutions that can help them alleviate their symptoms, which I tried to compile and document in the results section of the paper. It also became fairly obvious that current psychotherapy approaches (ie., CBT, mindfulness) haven't been studied enough and the mechanisms that are suggested as helpful actually appear to be incomplete. I suggested that more comprehensive and flexible approaches, like psychodynamic psychotherapy, may actually be more helpful in helping people cope with the devastating life changes and necessary adaptations to being disabled by this condition.

My hope is that researchers investigating effectiveness of current and potential tinnitus interventions will use this work to better understand differences in tinnitus and hyperacusis subtypes, and potentially figure out what causes the differences between them. Am also hoping to elaborate more on quantitative data collected as part of my dissertation in future studies, also potentially to expand upon the design of this study to gain more in-depth perspectives on the lived experience of sound sensitive tinnitus.

an expanded version of much of this paper along with a scale I developed to measure the impact of sound sensitivity on tinnitus can be found here: https://search-proquest-com.libprox...42912706/69FA6C76597D4C8FPQ/1?accountid=34899

Hope this helps! Please let me know if I can clarify further.

Sincerely,
Ben

 

[kelpiemsp]

Hi @Benjamin Greenberg this is great! Did you use any qualitative analysis software such as Nvivo? I am curious if you were able to measure the inter coder reliability among themes between coders? I'm thinking in my head whether a tinnitus sufferer would code the same as a non tinnitus sufferer.
Thanks!

 

[Benjamin Greenberg]

hi @kelpiemsp - we had several phases of validity checking with supervised methodological overview that was sought to ensure validity. All done by hand and color coding. Interestingly the themes matched almost entirely between reviewers, and configuring the fine points and deciding on names felt like a collaborative process that did not require much effort once the contents were decided. Thanks for your interest!

 

[kelpiemsp]

Thanks! @Benjamin Greenberg That is great, getting a good Kappa coefficient isn't easy. I truly appreciate all of the physical (as well as mental) labor that must have gone in to your research.