英文摘要 |
Background: Most of the tinnitus patients were found in the middle-age and elderly population, seriously impacting patients’ physical, psychological, social, and spiritual status. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the living experiences of elderly tinnitus patients. Method: The investigator used Heidegger phenomenology design and purposive sampling to collect data in the ENT clinics of a southern regional and teaching hospital. This study was approved by the hospital IRB committee and the author interviewed 10 elderly tinnitus patients. Colaizzi’s seven steps were applied into data analysis, along with four trustworthiness principles by Lincoln and Guba, including credibility, transferability, confirmability, and dependability to assure the robustness of data collection and analysis. Data collection was closed when the content of data analysis approached saturation from January 1 to December 30, 2011. Result: Six major and 23 minor themes were generated from the living experiences of ten elderly tinnitus patients. Six major themes included disturbing sound during midnight, mixed feelings of symptoms, self-interpretation of the causes of illness, seeking healing with hardships, adaptation of unhealed governance, transferred ideas to positive and negative thoughts. Conclusion/Implications for practice: The living experiences of ten elderly tinnitus patients were mainly on physical and psychological aspects. Social and spiritual aspects were less emphasized. It is suggested that in order to increase the knowledge of preventing tinnitus, an educational brochure can be created. |