"The effect of personality characteristics on the effectiveness of group cognitive psychotherapy treatment for tinnitus"

<u>Dr. Beáta Bencsik</u>¹, Dr. Csaba Kazinczi², Dr. Gábor Polony¹, Dr. Judit Szigeti F.¹

¹Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, Semmelweis University,

 Budapest, Hungary

²Department of Pulmonology, Semmelweis University, Budapest, Hungary

Introduction: Chronic tinnitus causes significant subjective distress. While cognitive-behavioral group interventions facilitate habituation, limited research has explored how personality traits and home practice compliance predict treatment outcomes. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a group-based skill-development intervention for tinnitus coping, and investigated the predictive power of the Big Five personality dimensions and home practice intensity on post-intervention outcomes.

Methods: Using a pre-post design (N = 93), tinnitus distress was measured using the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI), and personality was assessed via the BFI-10. At post-intervention, sessions attended and self-reported home practice frequency were recorded, while controlling for psychiatric history. Data were analyzed using a Wilcoxon signed-ranks test and a two-stage hierarchical linear regression. Additionally, the correlation between Openness and somatosensory amplification (SAS) was examined.

Results: At the group level, a highly significant reduction in tinnitus distress was observed (Z = -7.33, p < .001), with 81.7% of the participants showing improvement. In the hierarchical regression, the first block of control variables (baseline THI, age, sessions, psychiatric history, practice) accounted for 49.8% of the variance in post-test THI scores (Adj. R² = .436). The inclusion of Big Five dimensions in the second block significantly increased the explained variance to 58.5% (Adj. R² = .466, Delta R² = .087). In the final model, home practice intensity was a significant positive predictor (B = 0.380, p = .033), and Openness demonstrated a strong trend-level effect (B = 3.348, p = .063). Openness also correlated significantly with somatosensory amplification (r = .198, p = .044).

Conclusions: The intervention effectively reduces tinnitus distress. The positive predictive value of home practice and Openness reflects need-based compliance and a reflective cognitive style. Patients with higher baseline distress and somatic amplification may invest more effort into practicing, maintaining a heightened sensory focus that results in higher absolute post-test scores despite overall clinical improvement.