JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Tinnitus is a highly prevalent symptom affecting 10-20% of the adult population. The majority of tinnitus patients suffer from chronic tinnitus, which can directly or indirectly disrupt their daily life and negatively affect health-related quality of life. Full remission is rare, and recurrence likely. Therefore, tinnitus patients are frequently in need of repeated help in the form of costly and time-consuming treatments. As an answer, telerehabilitation is on the rise to promote self-management in tinnitus patients and reduce their dependency on face-to-face care.

Objective:

The aim of this systematic review was to give an overview of all available research concerning the effectiveness of telerehabilitation interventions for self-management of tinnitus.

Methods:

: This systematic review adheres to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines (PRISMA guidelines). PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane library were consulted in search of eligible studies. The search queries were built with the terms self-management, telerehabilitation, smartphone application and tinnitus and their possible synonyms.

Results:

In total, 31 articles were found eligible, some of which six studied multiple telerehabilitation forms. Internet-based Cognitive behavioural treatment (iCBT) with guidance by a psychologist or audiologist was examined in 17 studies (sample size (n) =1767), iCBT without guidance in four (n=940), self-help manuals in four (n=646), technological self-help devices in two (n= 82), smartphone applications in eight (n=284), and other internet-based interventions in two (n=130). In general, these six categories of telerehabilitation have proven to be effective in decreasing tinnitus severity and relieving tinnitus distress, with effect sizes ranging up to d= 1.34. However, dropout rates were often high (range 4% to 71,4%).

Conclusions:

Overall, telerehabilitation was found to be effective in reducing tinnitus severity and distress. It forms a possible tool to improve the self-management capacities of the patient and the accessibility of tinnitus care as a replacement or an addition to face-to-face care. Nevertheless, barriers such as lack of time, engagement, motivation and openness of the patient causing high dropout should be taken into consideration. Clinical Trial: The predefined protocol was registered in PROSPERO, with registration number CRD 42021285450.