PP1402 - Characteristics of Tinnitus: Review of Self-Reported Acoustic Symptoms and Social-Emotional Impact in Adult Audiology Patients

Abstract:
Clinical treatment of tinnitus patients is often challenging due to the unique nature of each patient’s symptoms and their perception of severity. This poster will investigate the self-reported acoustic characteristics and social-emotional impact of the tinnitus experienced by the patients seeking specialty treatment at the Wake Forest Baptist clinic since the inception of the tinnitus program in November 2022.

Summary:
Tinnitus is an auditory phenomenon that is defined as the perception of sound with no external source. For many, tinnitus is intense enough to interfere with hearing, sleep, concentration, or overall mental health. This “invisible illness” has a reported prevalence of between 8 to 25.3% of the population of the United States alone, with global pervasiveness estimated comparably.

Although tinnitus is one of the most common and distressing otologic concerns to patients, it is a subjective sensation that is difficult to evaluate objectively in a clinical study. Audiologists frequently utilize acoustic “matching” procedures to better quantify tinnitus, which involves manipulating sound pitch and volume to correlate with patient report. However, as research has shown there to be many diverse physiological causes for the generation of tinnitus, these measures are approximate and often fluctuate with patient perception.

Tinnitus can have many different etiologic factors, but is thought to most commonly result from damage to the cochlea or auditory nerve in concurrence with a sensorineural hearing loss. As such, audiologists are often the healthcare providers tasked with delivering care to this population. Due to the roughly 25% of patients who experience tinnitus permanently after initial onset, long-term tinnitus management is essential in assisting patients to develop healthy coping mechanisms and strategies for promoting auditory habituation.

In November 2022, the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Audiology clinic implemented a specialty group program for tinnitus patients to receive counseling and training in sound therapy techniques for at-home management. With the addition of a group session, there is now a second appointment option for patients seeking specialty treatment for this disorder, the other being an individual consultation session that completes a comprehensive audiological evaluation for matching sound characteristics. With each of these appointments, attending patients have completed a self-reported symptom intake form as well as the “Tinnitus Handicap Inventory” questionnaire (THI; Newman et al., 1996).

The resulting set of documentation outlines specific characteristics of the self-reported symptoms and the perceived severity of the condition from a large and diverse adult population of tinnitus patients. This prospective study intends to analyze the collected data to better understand which acoustic symptoms may be correlated with tinnitus severity. As this population represents patients who were driven to seek specialty care for this specific concern, severity levels will likely comprise a wide range of social-emotional impact. Due to the indefinite efficiency of therapeutic interventions for tinnitus in current clinical applications, identifying acoustic factors that could influence the patient’s perception of severity has the potential to impact how tinnitus management can be better adapted for patient-centered care.<

Data collection is ongoing, with the current subject group (n=98) representing a full calendar year of offering specialty tinnitus services at this clinic. As new patients are seen every day, we plan to continue to collect responses until February 1, 2024. After this time, data will be compared with statistical analysis for presentation.