Is tinnitus acceptance the same as tinnitus habituation?

INTRODUCTION: Tinnitus habituation and tinnitus acceptance both describe an apparent lack of responding to tinnitus noise. However, no prior studies have evaluated the possible overlap between tinnitus habituation and acceptance processes in chronic tinnitus sufferers. OBJECTIVES: We examined responses to the seven acceptance items from the Tinnitus Response Scales (TRS) along with 19 items that tapped the perceptual/behavioural aspects of tinnitus habituation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A large sample of chronic tinnitus sufferers (n = 273) were recruited via advertisements placed at tinnitus clinics and websites and in the media. They were asked to complete an online survey asking about their tinnitus history and recent experiences of tinnitus habituation, sensitization to tinnitus noise, and tinnitus acceptance, and distress. RESULTS: Exploratory factor analysis showed that a single factor solution explained 40% of the variance in the scale items. Acceptance and tinnitus habituation (vs. sensitization) subscale scores were highly negatively correlated with each other. CONCLUSION: Tinnitus acceptance and tinnitus habituation may describe related cognitive and perceptual/behavioral aspects of tinnitus adaptation. That is in this study, tinnitus-habituation items tapped perceptual awareness and behavioral responses to tinnitus, whereas tinnitus acceptance items tapped cognitive responses to the noise (i.e. lack of need to respond to the noise).

Australian women's cervical cancer screening attendance as a function of screening barriers and facilitators.

RATIONALE: Cervical cancer screening registry data indicate that 43% of eligible Australian women did not screen in the latest reporting period (2014-2015). However, few prior empirical studies have examined whether the screening barriers and facilitators experienced by women can affect their screening attendance. Such information is required to inform the development of future tailored health promotion strategies. OBJECTIVE: This study examined whether the cervical cancer screening barriers and facilitators identified by women were related to their screening history, from November 2015 and January 2016. At this time, Australian women typically undertook a Pap test every two years. They were deemed overdue for screening if they have not screened in the past 27 months (i.e., overdue by more than three months). METHOD: In this study, a large sample (N = 338) of women were asked about their screening history including screening status (i.e., up-to-date vs. overdue) and prior screening (i.e., never screened vs. screened), and the psychological and practical screening barriers or facilitators they had experienced. RESULTS: Logistic regression analysis indicated that screening status was related to a greater number of psychological barriers, but not practical barriers or facilitators. In contrast, prior screening was related to more practical and psychological screening barriers and fewer practical facilitators, but not psychological facilitators. Some individual psychological screening barriers (e.g., anxiety, embarrassment), practical barriers (e.g., lack of time) and practical facilitators (e.g., low cost of test) were related to women's screening status and prior screening. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that addressing practical cervical cancer screening facilitators (e.g., reminder prompts) and psychological screening barriers may help to optimize screening attendance in women who have never screened or are overdue for cervical cancer screening.

Disordered eating partly mediates the relationship between poor sleep quality and high body mass index.

OBJECTIVE: We evaluated the relationship between poor sleep quality and high body mass index (BMI) in a community-derived sample. In addition, we explored the premise that disordered eating (i.e. eating late at night and/or binge eating, which can occur at night) may partly explain the relationship. METHOD: An online survey asked 330 participants about their height and weight, recent sleep quality, and recent experiences of binge-eating and night-time eating. RESULTS: Using multiple regression analyses, high BMI was shown to be related to shorter sleep duration, increased sleep latency, use of sleeping medications and worse binge-eating, whereas worse sleep quality was related to worse night-eating, after controlling for depression and demographics. Using mediational analyses, binge-eating was shown to partly mediate the relationship between worse sleep quality to higher BMI, whereas night-eating mediated the reverse association of high BMI to worse sleep quality. DISCUSSION: The results suggest that night- and/or binge-eating may partly explain the observed relationship between worse sleep quality and overweight/obesity. Thus, the relationship may simply reflect that overweight people are more likely to binge-eat while they wait for sleep to come, and this may contribute to weight gain over time. In addition, the results may indicate that eating rather than weight gain or obesity may be responsible for causing the sleep deficits in overweight people.