Current status and trends in mHealth-based research for the treatment and intervention of tinnitus: Bibliometrics and product comparative analysis (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Tinnitus has become a global medical problem, can seriously harm human health, is challenging to alleviate, and ranks among the top three complex diseases in otolaryngology. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to analyse the research progress of mHealth for tinnitus treatment with related marketed products to further understand the research trends, product characteristics, problems, and transformation of tinnitus treatment software. METHODS Bibliometric methods were used to describe the characteristics of the relevant literature in terms of the number, authors, institutions, and topics. Using comparative product analysis, we compared the product features and problems of currently available tinnitus treatment software. RESULTS The data search was conducted for the period up to Feb 28, 2022. Following the PRISMA standardised screening process, 75 papers were finally included. The country with the most publications was Germany, followed by the UK and the USA, while China had only one relevant study. The most published journals were the American Journal of Audiology and Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (18,24%). As for the topics of publication, cognitive behavioural therapy started to become a hot topic in 2017, and research on mHealth increased. Including 22 pieces (78.6%) were medical or health apps; developers were mainly from the US (35.7%) and China (32.1%), with 35.7% (10) and 32.1% (9) respectively; the main treatment methods were sound therapy (10,35.7%) and cognitive behavioural therapy (2,7.1%). Seven (9.3%) of the 75 publications described products at the market stage, and 22 (78.6%) of the 28 marketed products lacked literature studies or evidence from professional bodies. CONCLUSIONS The use of mHealth for the treatment and intervention of tinnitus has shown an overall rapid development trend, in which good progress has been made in research on acoustic and cognitive behavioural therapies, and most studies have focused on treatment effects.