Soundfair has launched a directory of healthcare professionals who provide tinnitus management. The resource enables the public to search for practitioners who are qualified in and deliver different tinnitus management strategies and support services.
Public demand resulted in Soundfair’s Tinnitus Awareness initiative launching the Find a Tinnitus Professional referral network in time for Tinnitus Awareness Week this week 3-9 February 2025.
Soundfair said tinnitus could be a complex and confronting condition, and finding the right healthcare provider should not be an added barrier to living well. The directory aims to provide better-matched services and improve patient outcomes.
The resource connects individuals living with tinnitus to practitioners offering services such as counselling, sound therapy and hearing aid support. People can search specific strategies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) or tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) to find a local match.
Soundfair CEO Dr Caitlin Barr said the directory was for any professional who works with people who have tinnitus. This includes hearing care professionals, and others such as psychologists, physiotherapists and ENTs.
“The network will help people find specialists who offer more than basic audiology services, addressing specific management strategies and techniques,” Dr Barr told HPA.
“It aims to connect people with clinicians, such as audiologists, who specialise in tinnitus management, to compliment the professional directories that currently exist because it will specify which treatments they use and what additional expertise they have.”
People can browse services, providers, telehealth, location and funding options.
“Audiologists and audiometrists can also use this feature to search for clinicians to refer their clients to if they are not able to provide the tinnitus support,” Dr Barr added. “It’s win win.”
Discounted fee to join during Tinnitus Awareness Week
The directory allows unlimited free public searches. The fee for individual clinicians applying to be included in the register is $99 but this is 50% off during Tinnitus Awareness Week, 3-9 February 2025 for clinicians who register before 10 February.
“It’s the first of its kind – we’ve found no similar services locally or overseas,” Dr Barr said.
Audiologists sign up online through a vetting process which ensures they have the appropriate qualifications for the service they are providing.
Dr Emma Laird who previously worked at Soundfair as projects and program lead and was involved in setting up the directory said: “We need as many audiologists and psychologists to sign up as possible to provide the public with more choices. It’s important to offer various treatment options as what works for one person may not work for another.
“We’re asking clinicians about the exact strategies they use, what sort of techniques and training they have because when I was answering the phone for Tinnitus Australia (now Tinnitus Awareness), many people said they had been to an audiologist or a psychologist, but they didn’t understand or didn’t provide what they needed.”
The resource is also being promoted to other health professionals including ENT specialists and GPs who treat tinnitus as well as psychologists, physiotherapists, dentists, counsellors and neurologists.
“Somatic tinnitus can be worsened by neck and jaw issues and some physiotherapists offer tinnitus treatment so we would like to include them,” Dr Barr said. “We’re also approaching psychologists as the field is quite multidisciplinary although audiologists are the primary specialists.”
Practitioners list all management services they offer for tinnitus including informational counselling, TRT, CBT, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), hearing aid fitting for tinnitus management, sound therapy devices or approaches and support group facilitation.
They can also add additional conditions they manage including hearing loss, hyperacusis, misophonia, balance disorders and auditory processing disorder.
Championing wellbeing for people living with tinnitus is core to Soundfair’s mission. While Dr Laird started a new position as senior audiology lecturer at La Trobe University in January 2025, she will remain connected to Soundfair in a volunteer capacity and through continuing tinnitus research at La Trobe.
Soundfair will continue to grow the find tinnitus support tool and the tinnitus professional network.
See https://soundfair.org.au/tinnitus-referral-network/
T is for Tinnitus week
During Tinnitus Awareness Week this week, Tinnitus Awareness will run a national campaign, entitled, ‘T is for Tinnitus: Unseen, Unheard, Ignored’.
“It will focus on highlighting the serious mental health impacts of tinnitus, but the lack of a dialogue about lived experiences at a population level in Australia,” Dr Barr said.
She said the digital campaign aimed to make the condition visible and talked about and appealed to audiologists and others in the hearing sector to become involved and help promote the week.
“The campaign seeks to generate funds to enable Soundfair to launch Australia’s first national consumer survey entitled ‘Living with tinnitus,’ aimed at understanding the hidden struggles faced by individuals living with this condition,” Dr Barr said.
“The survey will gather data and share results of the mental health impacts, financial and wellbeing costs, support and service gaps. Results will be shared widely to inform future advocacy, research, treatment and policy positions.”
People can receive their free T is for Tinnitus digital campaign kit here.
The T is for Tinnitus digital campaign aims to make tinnitus visible and talked about by encouraging people to:
- share their own tinnitus story on social media using #TisforTinnitus and #TinnitusAwareness.
- show their support for people with tinnitus by posting on social media with the hand signal “T”.
- organise and run their own T-themed event such as a morning tea, tennis match or treasure hunt and share it using #TisforTinnitus and #TinnitusAwareness. Organisers of the first 100 events to register will receive a free host kit containing T-themed items.
- donate to Soundfair to support the work of Tinnitus Awareness and fund the survey.
Soundfair says hearing practitioners can also:
- Promote their work and tinnitus to their community by following Tinnitus Awareness socials.
- Encourage their clients to share their tinnitus story here.
- Sponsor the campaign.
- Volunteer to promote the campaign to their networks or organise an event in their organisation or community.
Tinnitus Awareness Week is internationally observed, originally led by Tinnitus UK, and now celebrated by many countries, including the USA through the American Tinnitus Association.
More reading
Tinnitus Australia changes name to Tinnitus Awareness and plans first consumer survey
Audiology Australia says awareness is the first step to tackling high rates of tinnitus
Deafness Forum Australia hosting free webinar for Tinnitus Awareness Week
