July 2019 update
We have now completed recruitment and treatment. A total of 102 people were recruited and of these 97 have completed treatment (by 9 July). There are still a number of follow-up sessions planned, between August and December 2019, which will allow us to collect longer-term follow-up data. We anticipate that all final follow up data will have been collected by the end of this year.
Over the coming 6 – 9 months, we will be managing data and analysing data, with support from a statistician. We will also be completing the write up of the quantitative data, with the aim to have this ready to submit for publication in a peer-review journal by March 2020. In 2020 we will also be working hard on other aspects of dissemination, including presentations at national and international conferences.
We have submitted our trial protocol for publication, and it is currently under peer review.
We have unfortunately experienced significant technical difficulties with the actigraphs loaned to us. Over the last year, 6 of the 7 actigraphs have failed, meaning much of the data is not recoverable. We will still have some objective data to assess sleep, but the reliability of this will be severely limited by the small number of actigraphy-based sleep outcomes now available to us.
We have added a qualitative element to the study, and have received ethical approval to interview participants who received either Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia or Audiologically Based Care in the trial. Participants who consent will be offered an interview with one of the researchers after their final follow up session. Interviews will explore their experiences and attitudes towards the different treatments with the aim to improve our understanding of how and why treatments might work, and what aspects could be enhanced to improve acceptability and efficacy.
August 2017 update
Dr McKenna and Dr Marks are now seeking people who are willing to take part in the trial. for more details, please see here.
April 2017 update
As a result of the valuable research work carried out by Dr Laurence McKenna and Dr Liz Marks at University College London we are commissioning a new study into a treatment for tinnitus-related insomnia.
Sleep disturbance is one of the most common complaints from people with tinnitus affecting between 50-70% of people attending tinnitus clinics.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is a psychological talking therapy which has been shown to help manage insomnia. CBTi is now part of the NICE guidelines for the management of long term insomnia (NICE 2014). This study will investigate the effectiveness of CBTi as a treatment of tinnitus-related insomnia. Sleep Hygiene (an approach commonly used in the tinnitus clinics) will be used as a control.
The trial is a two-year project costing £73,099.
Please do consider making a donation to help this project.
Photo by Matthew T Rader on Unsplash
Updated 3 July 2019
