Sound generator associated counseling in the treatment of tinnitus: effectiveness evaluation

Tinnitus is a aware perception of a sound without an occurrence of a corresponding external sound source. It is a highly prevalent symptom that affects a large portion of the population and often affects the individual\'s quality of life and speech perception. The purpose of this study was to verify the effectiveness of the sound generator (SG) associated with a counseling in the treatment of tinnitus in individuals with and without hearing loss, with regard to improving the nuisance and handicap, quality of life and speech perception. 30 Individuals were assessed divided into two groups: group 1 (G1) consisted of 15 individuals of both genders, with tinnitus and normal hearing adapted with SG, group 2 (G2) composed of 15 individuals of both genders with impaired hearing complaint and tinnitus adapted with SG and with hearing aid (HA). Both groups were submitted to the following: anamnesis and previous history of the hearing complaint, high frequency audiometry, tympanometry and acuphenometry with the psychoacoustics thresholds research of Pitch and Loudness matching, in addition to the tools\' application Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), Visual Analogue Scale, World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) and speech perception assessment through Hearing In Noise Test (HINT). Survey participants that were adapted with HA and SG Siemens brand and participated in a counseling session addressing issues associated with the physiology of hearing, pathophysiology of tinnitus and hearing with illustrative images. Individuals were assessed in three situations: An early assessment (before the HA and SG adaptation), Monitoring (3 months after the adaptation), and Final Evaluation (6 months after the adaptation). Studies of the results were performed using descriptive and inferential analysis performing the repeated measures analysis of variance two criteria (ANOVA) and using of multiple comparison test: Tukey, indicating that the comparison of nuisance and tinnitus handicap, quality of life evaluation and speech perception all three stages of evaluation showed significant improvement in both groups. The study concluded that the SG was equally effective in the treatment of tinnitus in individuals with and without hearing loss, providing reduced annoyance and handicap. The quality of life has improved after treatment, with no statistical significance in both groups and speech perception presented discrete improvements to the group with normal hearing, and relevant improvements for those with hearing loss. (AU)