Psychiatric disturbances and psychotropic drugs in tinnitus patients

At the ear, nose, and throat clinic of the Third Medical Faculty at Charles University and at the Psychiatry Department of the Institute for Further Education of Physicians in Prague, we examined 25 patients with tinnitus accompanied by psychiatric disturbances and followed them up for at least 6 months. Psychological changes in tinnitus patients occur in a characteristic chronological succession and manifest in three stages: defense, the search for adaptive mechanism, and relative recovery or a development of psychiatric disturbance (or both). Some psychotropic drugs probably diminish tinnitus by the mechanism of improving general psychiatric comfort and direct central influence. Subjective heaviness of tinnitus is defined by the authors as all the difficulties that exist along with tinnitus. It encompasses subjective evaluation of tinnitus loudness, frequency of tinnitus episodes, and psychiatric disturbances arising from the individual discomfort caused by tinnitus. The authors selected the visual analog scale as an easily used instrument appropriate for the complex evaluation of subjective heaviness of tinnitus.