Patient and clinical perspectives on unanswered questions about tinnitis treatment: The James Lind Alliance Experience

2012 Conference

Abstract: The James Lind Alliance promote two key principles:

• addressing uncertainties about the effects of treatments should become accepted as a much more routine part of clinical practice
• patients, carers and clinicians should work together to agree which uncertainties matter most and deserve priority attention.

Key issue: Our national project will identify unanswered questions about tinnitus treatment from patient and clinical perspectives and prioritise those that patients and clinicians agree are the most important.

What people will learn: Researchers, charity workers, clinicians and patients are working well together as a Steering Group. Our presentation will describe this process – its highlights and challenges. The project was launched in December 2011 (www.lindalliance.org/JLA_Tinnitus_PSP.asp). We expect to announce the outcomes at the British Tinnitus Association conference this September. At the outset, we engaged many different charities and professional bodies. We invited people to submit questions about tinnitus assessment, diagnosis or treatment that they would you like answered by research. We received 2483 questions submitted by 835 respondents. Patients were well represented (75%), with audiologists and hearing therapists also submitting questions (10%).

This exciting project will help shape the future of tinnitus research in the UK. We will discuss how to enhance PPI in this process.