School of Medical Technology and Information Engineering, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hang Zhou, China.
School of Public Health, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2023 Aug 24;11:e47553. doi: 10.2196/47553.
As a global medical problem, tinnitus can seriously harm human health and is difficult to alleviate, ranking among the top 3 complex diseases in the otolaryngology field. Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy and sound therapy require offline face-to-face treatment with medical staff and have limited effectiveness. Mobile health (mHealth), which, in recent decades, has been greatly applied in the field of rehabilitation health care, improving access to health care resources and the quality of services, has potential research value in the adjunctive treatment of tinnitus.
This study aimed to understand the research trends, product characteristics, problems, and research transformation of tinnitus treatment software by analyzing the research progress of mHealth for tinnitus treatment based on the literature and related marketed apps.
Bibliometric methods were used to describe the characteristics of the relevant literature in terms of the number and topics of publications, authors, and institutions. We further compared the features and limitations of the currently available tinnitus treatment software.
Data published until February 28, 2022, were collected. Following the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) standardized screening process, 75 papers were included. The country with the highest number of publications was Germany, followed by the United Kingdom and the United States, whereas China had only a single relevant study. The most frequently found journals were the American Journal of Audiology and the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (18/75, 24%). With regard to publication topics, cognitive behavioral therapy started to become a hot topic in 2017, and research on mHealth apps has increased. In this study, 28 tinnitus treatment apps were obtained (n=24, 86% from product data and n=4, 14% from literature data); these apps were developed mainly in the United States (10/28, 36%) or China (9/28, 32%). The main treatment methods were sound therapy (10/28, 36%) and cognitive behavioral therapy (2/28, 7%). Of the 75 publications, 7 (9%) described apps in the market stage. Of the 28 apps, 22 (79%) lacked literature studies or evidence from professional bodies.
We found that, as a whole, the use of mHealth for treatment and intervention in tinnitus was showing a rapid development, in which good progress had been made in studies around sound therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, although most of the studies (50/75, 67%) focused on treatment effects. However, the field is poorly accepted in top medical journals, and the majority are in the research design phase, with a lack of translation of the literature results and clinical validation of the marketed apps. Furthermore, in the future, novel artificial intelligence techniques should be used to address the issue of staged monitoring of tinnitus.
作为一个全球性的医学问题，耳鸣严重危害人类健康，且难以缓解，是耳鼻喉科领域的三大复杂疾病之一。传统的认知行为疗法和声音疗法需要医务人员线下面对面治疗，效果有限。移动医疗（mHealth）在康复保健领域得到了极大的应用，近年来提高了医疗资源的可及性和服务质量，在耳鸣的辅助治疗方面具有潜在的研究价值。
本研究旨在通过分析基于文献和相关市售应用程序的耳鸣治疗 mHealth 的研究进展，了解耳鸣治疗软件的研究趋势、产品特征、问题和研究转化。
采用文献计量学方法，从出版物数量和主题、作者和机构等方面描述相关文献的特征。我们进一步比较了目前可用的耳鸣治疗软件的特点和局限性。
截至 2022 年 2 月 28 日，收集了发表的数据。经过 PRISMA（系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目）标准化筛选流程，共纳入 75 篇论文。发表论文数量最多的国家是德国，其次是英国和美国，而中国仅有一项相关研究。出现频率最高的期刊是《美国听力学杂志》和《美国听力学学会杂志》（18/75，24%）。关于出版主题，认知行为疗法于 2017 年开始成为热门话题，mHealth 应用程序的研究也有所增加。在这项研究中，共获得了 28 个耳鸣治疗应用程序（n=24，86%来自产品数据，n=4，14%来自文献数据）；这些应用程序主要在美国（10/28，36%）或中国（9/28，32%）开发。主要的治疗方法是声音疗法（10/28，36%）和认知行为疗法（2/28，7%）。在 75 篇出版物中，有 7 篇（9%）描述了市场阶段的应用程序。在 28 个应用程序中，22 个（79%）缺乏文献研究或专业机构的证据。
我们发现，整体而言，mHealth 在耳鸣治疗和干预方面的应用呈快速发展趋势，在声音疗法和认知行为疗法的研究方面取得了良好进展，尽管大多数研究（50/75，67%）侧重于治疗效果。然而，该领域在顶级医学期刊上的认可度较低，且多数处于研究设计阶段，文献研究结果和市售应用的临床验证都较为缺乏。此外，未来应利用新型人工智能技术解决耳鸣的阶段性监测问题。
