Effect of Using Amplification Device for Treatment of Tinnitus Inpresbycusis in First Time Hearing Aid Users

The present study aimed to examine the impact of first time users of amplification devices by participants having presbycusis on tinnitus. Pure tone Audiometry along with immittance audiometry and speech Audiometry was carried out. The Tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) questionnaire, developed by Newman et al. (1996), was administered in all participants for pre and post hearing aid fitting conditions. The statistical analysis used were descriptive of mean, standard deviation, paired t-test and Welch two–sample t-test using SPSS software. The tinnitus profile varied among the participants in terms of onset, severity, site and duration. Majority of the participants (78.3%) in the study reported unilateral tinnitus. All of them were fitted with body worn analog hearing aids of different models with fitting style depending upon their nature of hearing loss. Administration of THI yielded changes in scores between the pre-hearing aid fitting and post-hearing aid fitting condition. Paired t-test revealed that there is a significant reduction [t (43) = 12.3271, p < .05] in tinnitus impact following amplification in the presbycusis cases. Welch two-sample t-test results revealed that there is no significantly greater decrease [t(19.906)=1.155,p < .05] of tinnitus after fitting with pseudobinaural hearing aids instead of unilateral hearing aids thus suggesting that pseudo-binaural fitting of amplification device will not have any greater impact on severity of tinnitus in presbycusis cases.