For the first time, the therapeutic effects on subacute and chronic tinnitus of an inpatient multimodal treatment concept
based on principles of Ericksonian hypnosis (EH) were examined by standardized criteria of the Tinnitus Questionnaire (TQ)
and Health Survey (SF-36) within a controlled prospective, longitudinal study. A total of 393 patients were treated within
an inpatient closed-group 28-day-setting based on a resource-oriented, hypnotherapeutic concept. The severity of tinnitus
was assessed by TQ at times of admission, discharge and also at a 6- and 12-month follow-up. Health-related quality of life
was evaluated before and after therapy using the SF-36. After therapy, a decrease in TQ score was seen in 90.5% of the patients
with subacute tinnitus and in 88,3% of those with chronic tinnitus. Assessment of the TQ score at the end of therapy revealed
highly significant improvements of 15.9/14.1 points in mean. Effect sizes in the treatment groups (0.94/0.80) were superior
to those in the waiting-list controls (0.14/0.23). The TQ score remained stable in the follow-up controls. Significant improvement
in health-related quality of life has been observed within the treatment groups depending on initial level of tinnitus serverity
I–IV according to TQ. Using a multimodal treatment concept with emphasis on resource-activating approaches of EH the annoyance
of tinnitus can be significantly reduced while health-related quality of life is enhanced within a comparatively short treatment
period of 28 days.
Keywords Subjective tinnitus - Quality of life - Behavioural medicine - Psychotherapy - Hearing loss