Saturday, April 30
12:30 pm – 12:45 pm

Audiology
Session 36

Hailey Corthell, BA; O’neil Guthrie, MS, PhD, CCC-A; Megan MacIlroy, BS
Level of Instruction: Introductory   –   Joshua Tree I

The Northern Arizona University (NAU) Tinnitus Support Group is a free and open forum for members of the community and university to share their experiences with each other and acquire information about tinnitus from providers/professionals (e.g., Audiologists & Psychologists) in the community. This support group was modeled after the American Tinnitus Associations Tinnitus Support Group Leader Help Book.  This model can be likened to the third hierarchical level of the Progressive Audiologic Tinnitus Management, where group education is used to provide counseling by Audiologists or other health providers (Henry et al, 2009).
In order to continually improve the support group and acquire feedback on creating a new Tinnitus Clinic, a quality improvement questionnaire is provided to participants during the monthly meetings. This quality improvement questionnaire is an open set of questions regarding goals, suggestions, and logistics for tinnitus support group meetings and a tinnitus clinic. Although, the information from the questionnaire will be used to improve the services we provide (e.g., improve the support group and design a future tinnitus clinic) at NAU, we also recognize that this information will be valuable to other providers and facilities across the country.

Learner Outcomes:  At the completion of this presentation, participants will be able to list three benefits of a tinnitus support group, list three common logistical suggestions for a tinnitus support group posed by its members and identify focus areas for a tinnitus clinic.