The effectiveness of hypnotherapy in the treatment of subjective tinnitus

Tinnitus is an annoying disease cause major problems including insomnia, impaired concentration, and reduced quality of life. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in the treatment of subjective tinnitus. This was a pilot experimental study with pre- and post-test method. 20 people suffered from subjective tinnitus were divided equally in two groups of experimental and control. The two groups were matched according to age and severity of tinnitus. They completed tinnitus clinical questionnaires before and after the test and the severity of their tinnitus was recorded by a number from one to ten. Experimental group went under hypnotherapy for 10 sessions. The control group did not perform any psychological treatment. The gathered data were statistically analyzed using Student's t-test (independent and dependent). There were significant differences between the pre-test and post-test scores of each group and also, between the post-test scores of experimental and control groups (p = 0.001 for all). The results showed that hypnotherapy could effectively reduce the seventy of tinnitus in patients in the experimental group; in other words, the results confirm the effectiveness of medical hypnosis in the treatment of subjective tinnitus.