Hearing recovery is related to the short-term prognosis of
tinnitus after SSNHL
A total of 68.3% of the patients showed improvement in tinnitus to
varying degrees at discharge, and hearing recovery was found to be a
non-independent factor related to the short term prognosis of tinnitus.
Regarding the pathology of tinnitus described earlier, hearing loss is
the trigger of tinnitus. At the time of discharge, 92 patients (57.1%)
showed improvement in hearing, but the degree of hearing recovery is not
completely consistent with the prognosis of tinnitus. Even if hearing
improves to some extent, the effect on the intensity of tinnitus is
minimal. Therefore, we cannot simply use hearing recovery to explain the
relief of tinnitus. The occurrence of tinnitus consisted of two
components: perception and reaction(1).
Reaction represents a complex connection between the auditory system and
the emotional system. Several investigations have verified the
spontaneous remission of psychiatric symptomatology over a waiting
period (18,
19). The social desirability hypothesis
states that no true change occurs in the number or intensity of
symptoms, but instead, an increase in the threshold for reporting their
presence occurs. The item content-priming cue-recall hypothesis states
that over time and after repeated exposure to these items, subjects will
report less negative states due to habituation or
extinction(20). A meta-analysis of 11
studies with 314 individuals distressed by tinnitus who were randomly
allocated to a waiting period of 6–12 weeks revealed mean decreases in
symptoms of 3% to 8%(21). The
short-term prognosis of tinnitus may be related to a decrease in the
reaction (12-14). As hearing loss
improves, their psychological reaction to tinnitus decreases.