Losing silence, gaining acceptance: a qualitative exploration of the role of thoughts in adult patients with subjective tinnitus

Helen Pryce, Katie Chilvers

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Objective: Tinnitus is one of the most common somatic symptoms to affect humanity. Prevalence rates in adult populations range from 8.2 to 20.1%. Our aim was to understand the beliefs and interpretations of tinnitus and the experience of living with it.

Design: An in depth grounded theory interview study. Grounded theory is an inductive approach to developing theory.

Sample: Thirteen contrasting people with tinnitus who had sought help from clinical services in England.

Results: We identified that the thinking patterns that people held around their tinnitus impacted how they experienced it. A core category emerged from the data, “sense making”. Around “sense making” eight other themes operated. Results are discussed in relation to the literature on tinnitus acceptance and beliefs.

Conclusions: The aim of interventions is to foster understanding and enhance perceptions of control, which may minimise the emotional impact of tinnitus and reduce the perceived severity of consequences.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)801-808
JournalInternational Journal of Audiology
Volume57
Issue number11
Early online date8 Oct 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 8 Oct 2018

Bibliographical note

Copyright ©2018 British Society of Audiology, International Society of Audiology, and Nordic Audiological Society. Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

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