Management of Tinnitus in Covid-19 Outbreak-A Comparative Study between Mindfulness Based Tinnitus Stress Reduction and Tinnitus Retraining Therapy

• Main Authors: Chatterjee, I. (Author), Chatterjee1, N. (Author), Chattopadhyay, D. (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Tinnitus Journal 2021
• Subjects: adult; Adult; anxiety disorder; Article; audiology; Audiometry, Pure-Tone; clinical article; comparative study; complication; controlled study; coronavirus disease 2019; COVID-19; COVID-19 Pandemic; epidemiology; etiology; experimental design; exposure therapy; female; Female; human; Humans; male; Male; mental stress; middle aged; Middle Aged; mindfulness; Mindfulness; mindfulness based tinnitus stress reduction; Mindfulness-based tinnitus stress reduction.; mobile application; Mobile Applications; physiological stress; procedures; psychology; pure tone audiometry; questionnaire; smartphone; Smartphone; Stress, Psychological; Surveys and Questionnaires; tension; tinnitus; Tinnitus; Tinnitus Cognitions Questionnaire; Tinnitus Handicap Inventory; tinnitus retraining therapy; Tinnitus-Retraining Therapy; young adult; Young Adult
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher

 Background: Covid-19 pandemic has caused a profound impact on the lives of people and has given rise to many mental health issues like anxiety and stress which eventually has given rise to bothersome tinnitus. In case of people having pre-existing tinnitus, the pandemic has raised the problem of tinnitus and the co-morbid issues related to tinnitus and severely affected the overall quality of life. Hence, we need to find a mean for home-based management of tinnitus and its associated problems. Objective: To understand the mechanism of mental health and to compare between the mindfulness-based tinnitus reduction and tinnitus retraining therapy on android-based application. Design: Comparative and Experimental design. Method: The study was conducted on 60 participants and was divided into two groups. Detailed audiological assessment, tinnitus assessment and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) and Tinnitus Cognitions Questionnaire (TCQ) were administered. Group-I was provided with tinnitus retraining therapy and group-II was provided with mindfulness based tinnitus stress reduction. After the post therapy evaluation the data were compiled for statistical analysis in SPSS software 20.0. Results: It was found that there were significant difference between the pre and post therapy scores of TRT and MBTSR in both THI and TCQ (p0.001). Conclusion: Home-based management of tinnitus during the COVID-19 pandemic using both TRT and MBTSR were highly successful and had similar results MBTSR was found to be more useful as it had better outcome in reducing the tinnitus related annoyance and shown better improvement in QOL examination. © 2021 International Tinnitus Journal. All rights reserved.