THE MANAGEMENT OF CHRONIC TINNITUS - COMPARISON OF A COGNITIVE-BEHAVIORAL GROUP TRAINING WITH YOGA

Two non-medical treatment strategies for chronic idiopathic tinnitus w ere evaluated in a randomized control group design. A cognitive-behavi oural tinnitus coping training (TCT) was developed and compared to yog a and a self-monitoring control condition. Forty-three chronic tinnitu s patients, were assessed at baseline, directly after therapy, and at 3 months follow-up. For evaluation, differential psychoacoustic variab les were registered, a tinnitus diary as well as the Tinnitus Question naire and different measures of general well-being were used. Statisti cal analyses showed effects favouring the TCT treatment in comparison to the control and yoga treatment. The TCT-treated patients reported m ore satisfaction with the training than the yoga group. Participants i n the self-monitoring control group were treated either by TCT or yoga after a waiting period. The outcome in this group was even better tha n in the experimental groups while yoga again showed rather poor effec ts.