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.