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.
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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 801-808 |
| Journal | International Journal of Audiology |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| Early online date | 8 Oct 2018 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 8 Oct 2018 |
Bibliographical note
©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 (http://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.