Development and Validation of Self-Management Manual for Acute Tinnitus.

The aim of the study was to develop a self-management manual for tinnitus. The study was carried out in three phases. In phase-1, an evidence-based approach was considered by reviewing the literature to select intervention strategies that had proven to reduce tinnitus percept. Further, health literacy recommendations were used to convey the information in the manual to the patient. Phase-2 included expert committee scrutiny and assessing the understandability and actionability of the prepared self-management manual using the Patient Education Material Assessment Tool (PEMAT). In Phase-3, the self-management manual was validated from tinnitus patients. The expert committee mainly gave suggestions regarding the content, word choice and grammatical errors. PEMAT scores from patients and the expert committee revealed that activities provided in the manual are understandable and actionable. The THI and TFI scores were reduced after one month of short-term intervention. The self-management manual effectively reduced tinnitus percept and associated problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]