Search

Background: Tinnitus is a common medical symptom that can affect an individual’s emotional and functional quality of life. Psychological therapies are acknowledged as beneficial to people with tinnitus; however, such therapies are not always readily accessible. With their global reach, automated Internet-based interventions have the potential to reduce the disparity in access to psychological support that people with tinnitus currently experience. However, the evidence on the acceptability and efficacy of these interventions is lacking. Process evaluations that develop an in-depth understanding of how users experience these interventions provide an essential first step when evaluating complex psychological interventions. Objective: To describe the protocol for a study that will explore past, current, and new users’ reactions to and interactions with the Tinnitus E-Programme, an Internet-based intervention for the self-management of tinnitus. Methods: Two parallel mixed-methods studies will be carried out with 2 different populations. Study 1 will use an online survey to gather past and current users’ views of the program. Study 2 will recruit new program users to take part in an interview and complete a relaxation log to explore how well they were able to implement the skills they learned during the program in their everyday lives. The findings from both studies will be triangulated to develop an in-depth understanding of the program’s mechanisms of impact and identify any implementation or contextual factors that strengthen or impede its delivery and functioning. Results: Study 1 is open for recruitment with a projected completion in June 2016 and Study 2 was completed November 2015. At the time of submission, 36 participants have been recruited to Study 1 and 12 participants have taken part in Study 2. Conclusions: Findings will inform the optimization of the Tinnitus E-Programme and guide future evaluation work to assess the program’s effectiveness as a therapy f

Objective: Self-help interventions are followed by people independently with minimal or no therapist contact. This review aims to assess the effectiveness of self-help interventions for adults with chronic tinnitus and systematically identify the self-help techniques used. Design: Systematic review and application of health psychology taxonomies. Electronic database searches were conducted, supplemented by citation searching and hand-searching of key journals. Prospective controlled trials, which used measures of tinnitus distress, functional management, anxiety, depression, and quality of life, were included. Michie et al’s behaviour change techniques (BCTs) taxonomy and Taylor et al’s PRISMS taxonomy of self-management components were applied to describe interventions. Study sample: Five studies were included, providing low-to-moderate levels of evidence. Results: Randomized controlled trial studies were too few and heterogeneous for meta-analysis to be performed. Studies comparing self-help interventions to therapist-guided interventions and assessing non tinnitus-specific psychosocial outcomes and functional management were lacking. Fifteen BCTs and eight self-management components were identified across interventions. Conclusions: A lack of high-quality and homogeneous studies meant that confident conclusions could not be drawn regarding the efficacy of self-help interventions for tinnitus. Better reporting and categorization of intervention techniques is needed for replication in research and practice and to facilitate understanding of intervention mechanisms.

Objectives: To develop a comprehensive intervention plan for the REDUCE maintenance intervention to support people who have had diabetic foot ulcers (DFUs) to sustain behaviours that reduce re-ulceration risk. Methods: Theory-, evidence- and person-based approaches to intervention development were used. In phase 1 of intervention planning, evidence was collated from a scoping review of the literature and qualitative interviews with patients who have had DFUs (N=20). This was used to identify the psychosocial needs and challenges of this population, and barriers and facilitators to the intervention’s target behaviours: regular foot checking, rapid self-referral in the event of changes in foot health, graded and regular physical activity, and emotional management. In phase 2, this evidence was combined with expert consultation to develop the intervention plan. Brief ‘guiding principles’ for shaping intervention development were created. ‘Behavioural analysis’ and ‘logic modelling’ were used to map intervention content onto behaviour change theory to comprehensively describe the intervention and its hypothesised mechanisms. Results: Key challenges to the interventions’ target behaviours included patients’ uncertainty regarding when to self-refer, physical limitations affecting foot checking and physical activity, and, for some, difficulties managing negative emotions. Important considerations for the intervention design included a need to increase patients’ confidence in making a self-referral and in using the maintenance intervention, and a need to acknowledge that some intervention content might be relevant to only some patients (emotional management, physical activity). The behavioural analysis identified the following processes hypothesised to facilitate long-term behaviour maintenance including; increasing patients’ skills, self-efficacy, knowledge, positive outcome expectancies, sense of personal control, social support, and physical opportunity. Conclusions: Thi

Internet-based self-management interventions have the potential to reduce the current disparity in access to psychological support for people with tinnitus. One example is the Tinnitus E-Programme, which was developed in the United Kingdom to support self-management in people with tinnitus. Although freely available online, there was little understanding of how the intervention is used, its active ingredients, how it works, the circumstances in which it works best, and whom it works best for. This PhD aimed to address these issues by evaluating and optimising the Tinnitus E-Programme. A systematic review of self-help interventions for tinnitus was conducted, which concluded that there was a need for further evaluations of unguided self-help interventions in UK populations. A mixed methods study explored past, current, and new users’ (n=40) views and usage of the Tinnitus E-Programme (1.0), demonstrating that it was acceptable to people with tinnitus. However, its implementation was limited by instances of poor usability, user engagement, and adherence to behavioural goals. Consistent with a person-based approach, the findings from this mixed methods study were used alongside evidence-based (i.e. systematic and literature reviews) and theory-based (i.e. behavioural analysis and logic modelling) approaches to develop the Tinnitus E-Programme 2.0. Think aloud interviews with 19 people with tinnitus evaluated this new version of the intervention and findings revealed that the Tinnitus E-Programme 2.0 was acceptable to its target users. The two primary research studies highlighted how users’ pre-existing beliefs regarding tinnitus and self-management, their perceptions of relevance, and the nature of tinnitus can influence users’ engagement with the Tinnitus E-Programme 1.0 and 2.0. Several cognitive factors (e.g. illness beliefs), behavioural factors (e.g. practicing relaxation), and behavioural determinants (e.g. motivation to practice relaxation) were identified by us