Objective: Assessment of a joint medical-psychological consultation (JMPC) available to patients suffering from tinnitus. Main criteria for assessment: improvement of patients’ quality of life, stopping their quest for medical attention, presentation and assessment of this consultation. Material and Methods: Follow-up of patients counseled at the Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery Polyclinic between 1993 and 1996. Patients who had consulted for the first time were compared to those who had been referred by other specialists or their family doctors because of tinnitus. Patients who suffered solely from tinnitus were compared to patients with multi- ple somatic and/or psychological complaints. Present and retrospec- tive assessment. Questionnaires were delivered over the phone. Data were processed by computer (SPSS, version 6.1). Results: Rate of response: 74%. Seventy-one percent of patients had not consulted further after the JMPC: for 83% of the patients, the JMPC had been their first consultation, while 63% of the patients had either been referred by an ENT specialist or had already consulted one or more ENT specialists. For 22% of patients, the sole complaint was tinnitus, while 78% mentioned other somatic and/or psychological complaints. Since the consultation, 19% feel better, 69% have noticed no change and 12% feel worse; 56% were satisfied, 26% found the consultation no different from traditional ENT consultations, and 13% were dissatisfied. Conclusions: This type of consultation seems particularly suited to this patient population, of whom the majority also suffer from other somatic and/or psychological disorders. The majority of patients (71%) have not consulted elsewhere for tinnitus since this consultation; so the study was successful in meeting this objective.

Keywords:
Tinnitus, Medico-psychological joint consultation, Quality of life, Follow-up
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© 2000 S. Karger AG, Basel
2000
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