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Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK

Tinnitus has long been interrogated as a medical conundrum, with little discourse between medicine and other disciplines. It involves the perception of sound in the ears or head without any external sound source, most likely a natural consequence of some form of hearing loss. For many people, tinnit...

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Autores principales: Burns-O'Connell, Georgina, Stockdale, David, Hoare, Derek James
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7029250/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31740577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2019-011671
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author Burns-O'Connell, Georgina
Stockdale, David
Hoare, Derek James
author_facet Burns-O'Connell, Georgina
Stockdale, David
Hoare, Derek James
author_sort Burns-O'Connell, Georgina
collection PubMed
description Tinnitus has long been interrogated as a medical conundrum, with little discourse between medicine and other disciplines. It involves the perception of sound in the ears or head without any external sound source, most likely a natural consequence of some form of hearing loss. For many people, tinnitus is bothersome and associated with various problems such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating and impaired listening ability. Nevertheless, with little attention from humanities or the social sciences, our understanding of the wider perspectives and psychosocial context of adults with tinnitus is limited, especially among UK military veterans. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of tinnitus on aged UK veterans, and to consider the support they receive and require to live well with tinnitus. In all, 120 aged UK veterans took part in this study. Data revealed similarities and differences between UK veteran and other study populations. For example, tinnitus symptom severity was higher in aged veterans than a general (younger) research population, particularly so on measures of intrusiveness and the effect of tinnitus on listening ability. Veterans had mixed views on social support. Many did not want to talk about tinnitus with others and/or did not want to burden their family, preferring to deal with their tinnitus ‘backstage’. Others appreciated empathy or sympathy; many implied a desire that their family and/or friends could better understand their experience of living with tinnitus and the problems it caused them. These complexities support a need for cross-disciplinary work to understand and respond to tinnitus-related problems in veterans.
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spelling pubmed-70292502020-03-03 Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK Burns-O'Connell, Georgina Stockdale, David Hoare, Derek James Med Humanit Original Research Tinnitus has long been interrogated as a medical conundrum, with little discourse between medicine and other disciplines. It involves the perception of sound in the ears or head without any external sound source, most likely a natural consequence of some form of hearing loss. For many people, tinnitus is bothersome and associated with various problems such as insomnia, difficulty concentrating and impaired listening ability. Nevertheless, with little attention from humanities or the social sciences, our understanding of the wider perspectives and psychosocial context of adults with tinnitus is limited, especially among UK military veterans. The aim of this study was to explore the impact of tinnitus on aged UK veterans, and to consider the support they receive and require to live well with tinnitus. In all, 120 aged UK veterans took part in this study. Data revealed similarities and differences between UK veteran and other study populations. For example, tinnitus symptom severity was higher in aged veterans than a general (younger) research population, particularly so on measures of intrusiveness and the effect of tinnitus on listening ability. Veterans had mixed views on social support. Many did not want to talk about tinnitus with others and/or did not want to burden their family, preferring to deal with their tinnitus ‘backstage’. Others appreciated empathy or sympathy; many implied a desire that their family and/or friends could better understand their experience of living with tinnitus and the problems it caused them. These complexities support a need for cross-disciplinary work to understand and respond to tinnitus-related problems in veterans. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-12 2019-11-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7029250/ /pubmed/31740577 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2019-011671 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Research
Burns-O'Connell, Georgina
Stockdale, David
Hoare, Derek James
Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title_full Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title_fullStr Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title_full_unstemmed Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title_short Soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the UK
title_sort soldiering on: a survey on the lived experience of tinnitus in aged military veterans in the uk
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7029250/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31740577
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2019-011671
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