MANAGING TINNITUS - A COMPARISON OF DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO TINNITUS MANAGEMENT-TRAINING

A series of studies examining the interaction between the characterist ics of individual tinnitus sufferers and the effectiveness of the meth ods used to assist them has been conducted. The first of these studies provided a baseline description of 96 people with tinnitus, according to a range of audiological and psychological variables. In the presen t paper four differing tinnitus management programmes are described an d the related changes in tinnitus perception reported three months aft er tinnitus management training. For the majority of subjects, the tin nitus was less annoying and less distressing three months after attend ing tinnitus management training. However, the majority of subjects re ported no change in tinnitus loudness, or tinnitus awareness and no ch ange in their tinnitus coping ability. Subjects receiving low level wh ite noise stimulation reported greater improvement in tinnitus coping ability than subjects who received information and relaxation training , although there was no associated improvement in tinnitus awareness. Subjects' beliefs about tinnitus and preferred coping style may have i nfluenced the reported benefit or otherwise of the differing tinnitus management techniques.