Survey of Audiology Graduate Programs: Training Students in Tinnitus Management

Abstract

Purpose Although tinnitus is highly prevalent among patients receiving audiology services, the extent to which most audiologists are trained in tinnitus management is not well documented. The extent and type of instruction in tinnitus clinical care provided by audiology graduate (AuD) programs is not clear, nor is it known whether training programs are consistent in their recommendations. It is certainly true that widely accepted standards do not exist to ensure that all tinnitus clinical services are supported by adequate scientific evidence, which may result in unsatisfactory outcomes and unnecessary expense for patients. The purpose of this clinical focus article is to describe the results of an informal survey of AuD programs to determine their level of training for tinnitus management. Method A short survey was sent to all 75 American Speech-Language-Hearing Association–accredited AuD programs to assess the extent and type of tinnitus training their students receive. Conclusions The 32 AuD programs that responded to our survey provide tinnitus training using a variety of settings and methods. Further research could explore in more detail the extent of training in specific methods provided by these programs, and aim to elicit responses from a greater number of programs and from the students themselves.

Tinnitus Assessment and Management: A Survey of Practicing Audiologists in the United States and Canada

“…programs did not favorably rank their graduates' ability to counsel tinnitus patients (22% of graduates below average, 41% were ranked as average, and 38% were ranked above average). 15 The 22% of graduates who were found to be ranked as below average by Henry et al 15 are again very similar to the data collected from the responding audiologists in the present survey study, which indicates ∼20% of audiologists do not perform or refer for tinnitus counseling. Further standardization of tinnitus training, tinnitus assessment and management could improve audiologists' compliance with CPGs.…”

“…graduates to address the tinnitus patient population found that only 68% of programs ranked their graduates as being well prepared to assess the functional and emotional impacts of bothersome tinnitus. 15 This percentage is an exact match to the sampled audiologists in the present study that indicated they deploy standardized questionnaires (68%), which largely aim at characterizing the functional and emotional impacts of tinnitus. 42 Furthermore, Henry et al 15 also reported that Au.D.…”

“…15 This percentage is an exact match to the sampled audiologists in the present study that indicated they deploy standardized questionnaires (68%), which largely aim at characterizing the functional and emotional impacts of tinnitus. 42 Furthermore, Henry et al 15 also reported that Au.D. programs did not favorably rank their graduates' ability to counsel tinnitus patients (22% of graduates below average, 41% were ranked as average, and 38% were ranked above average).…”

“…Further standardization of tinnitus training, tinnitus assessment and management could improve audiologists' compliance with CPGs. 13,15 Study Limitations Despite attempts to make the survey available to as many audiologists as possible we only received 78 respondents. The relatively low response rate could be due to several different factors, some of which may include (1) too busy to participate, (2) no clinical experience with tinnitus, (3) lack of interest in the topic, or (4) simply missing the announcement to participate.…”

“…Most audiologists and physicians do not uniformly adhere to a single standardized approach. 13,14 This issue is further compounded by the fact that audiologists' clinical training on how to assess and manage tinnitus is heterogeneous, 15 and they generally receive little training on tinnitus counseling. 16 The present study aimed to determine how audiologists approach the assessment and management of patients with tinnitus.…”