Source: Diabetes Care  |  Posted 10 years ago

Patients with severe tinnitus show signs of improvement over time, particularly if they receive behavioural therapy, Swedish researchers report.

Masking of the complaint at time of diagnosis is also an important prognostic factor for future complaints, investigators note.

Researchers in the audiology departments at University Hospital and Uppsala University conducted a longitudinal follow-up of a consecutive sample of 189 tinnitus patients.

Participants were treated between January 1988 and March 1995. All were seen initially by a hospital clinical psychologist.

A total of 146 (77 percent) responded to a mailed questionnaire based on a structured interview. It included a tinnitus reaction questionnaire and tinnitus-matching data.

Respondents included 77 women and 69 men.

"Many patients with tinnitus still experienced distress an average of 4.9 years after admission," the researchers point out. "Tolerance increased over time overall."

Investigators found that patients who had received cognitive behavioural therapy reported reduced tinnitus-related distress. A total of 59 percent of the respondents had received psychological treatment.

"An open-ended question showed that the benefits from treatment outnumbered the deficits," the researchers comment.

They also found that tinnitus masking at admission was an important prognostic factor for future complaints.