TY - JOUR A1 - Allgaier, Johannes A1 - Schlee, Winfried A1 - Probst, Thomas A1 - Pryss, Rüdiger T1 - Prediction of tinnitus perception based on daily life mHealth data using country origin and season JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine N2 - Tinnitus is an auditory phantom perception without external sound stimuli. This chronic perception can severely affect quality of life. Because tinnitus symptoms are highly heterogeneous, multimodal data analyses are increasingly used to gain new insights. MHealth data sources, with their particular focus on country- and season-specific differences, can provide a promising avenue for new insights. Therefore, we examined data from the TrackYourTinnitus (TYT) mHealth platform to create symptom profiles of TYT users. We used gradient boosting engines to classify momentary tinnitus and regress tinnitus loudness, using country of origin and season as features. At the daily assessment level, tinnitus loudness can be regressed with a mean absolute error rate of 7.9% points. In turn, momentary tinnitus can be classified with an F1 score of 93.79%. Both results indicate differences in the tinnitus of TYT users with respect to season and country of origin. The significance of the features was evaluated using statistical and explainable machine learning methods. It was further shown that tinnitus varies with temperature in certain countries. The results presented show that season and country of origin appear to be valuable features when combined with longitudinal mHealth data at the level of daily assessment. KW - tinnitus KW - gradient boosting machine KW - mobile health KW - machine learning KW - multimodal data KW - explainable machine learning Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-281812 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 11 IS - 15 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Unnikrishnan, Vishnu A1 - Schleicher, Miro A1 - Shah, Yash A1 - Jamaludeen, Noor A1 - Pryss, Ruediger A1 - Schobel, Johannes A1 - Kraft, Robin A1 - Schlee, Winfried A1 - Spiliopoulou, Myra T1 - The effect of non-personalised tips on the continued use of self-monitoring mHealth applications JF - Brain Sciences N2 - Chronic tinnitus, the perception of a phantom sound in the absence of corresponding stimulus, is a condition known to affect patients' quality of life. Recent advances in mHealth have enabled patients to maintain a ‘disease journal’ of ecologically-valid momentary assessments, improving patients' own awareness of their disease while also providing clinicians valuable data for research. In this study, we investigate the effect of non-personalised tips on patients' perception of tinnitus, and on their continued use of the application. The data collected from the study involved three groups of patients that used the app for 16 weeks. Groups A & Y were exposed to feedback from the start of the study, while group B only received tips for the second half of the study. Groups A and Y were run by different supervisors and also differed in the number of hospital visits during the study. Users of Group A and B underwent assessment at baseline, mid-study, post-study and follow-up, while users of group Y were only assessed at baseline and post-study. It is seen that the users in group B use the app for longer, and also more often during the day. The answers of the users to the Ecological Momentary Assessments are seen to form clusters where the degree to which the tinnitus distress depends on tinnitus loudness varies. Additionally, cluster-level models were able to predict new unseen data with better accuracy than a single global model. This strengthens the argument that the discovered clusters really do reflect underlying patterns in disease expression. KW - tinnitus KW - ecological momentary assessments KW - physician feedback KW - mHealth KW - self-monitoring KW - non-personalised tips Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-219435 SN - 2076-3425 VL - 10 IS - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schlee, Winfried A1 - Neff, Patrick A1 - Simoes, Jorge A1 - Langguth, Berthold A1 - Schoisswohl, Stefan A1 - Steinberger, Heidi A1 - Norman, Marie A1 - Spiliopoulou, Myra A1 - Schobel, Johannes A1 - Hannemann, Ronny A1 - Pryss, Rüdiger T1 - Smartphone-guided educational counseling and self-help for chronic tinnitus JF - Journal of Clinical Medicine N2 - Tinnitus is an auditory phantom perception in the ears or head in the absence of a corresponding external stimulus. There is currently no effective treatment available that reliably reduces tinnitus. Educational counseling is a treatment approach that aims to educate patients and inform them about possible coping strategies. For this feasibility study, we implemented educational material and self-help advice in a smartphone app. Participants used the educational smartphone app unsupervised during their daily routine over a period of four months. Comparing the tinnitus outcome measures before and after smartphone-guided treatment, we measured changes in tinnitus-related distress, but not in tinnitus loudness. Improvements on the Tinnitus Severity numeric rating scale reached an effect size of 0.408, while the improvements on the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory (THI) were much smaller with an effect size of 0.168. An analysis of user behavior showed that frequent and intensive use of the app is a crucial factor for treatment success: participants that used the app more often and interacted with the app intensively reported a stronger improvement in the tinnitus. Between study allocation and final assessment, 26 of 52 participants dropped out of the study. Reasons for the dropouts and lessons for future studies are discussed in this paper. KW - tinnitus KW - self-help KW - ecological momentary assessment KW - ehealth KW - smart-phone KW - intervention Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-267295 SN - 2077-0383 VL - 11 IS - 7 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Allgaier, Johannes A1 - Schlee, Winfried A1 - Langguth, Berthold A1 - Probst, Thomas A1 - Pryss, Rüdiger T1 - Predicting the Gender of Individuals with Tinnitus based on Daily Life Data of the TrackYourTinnitus mHealth Platform JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Tinnitus is an auditory phantom perception in the absence of an external sound stimulation. People with tinnitus often report severe constraints in their daily life. Interestingly, indications exist on gender differences between women and men both in the symptom profile as well as in the response to specific tinnitus treatments. In this paper, data of the TrackYourTinnitus platform (TYT) were analyzed to investigate whether the gender of users can be predicted. In general, the TYT mobile Health crowdsensing platform was developed to demystify the daily and momentary variations of tinnitus symptoms over time. The goal of the presented investigation is a better understanding of gender-related differences in the symptom profiles of users from TYT. Based on two questionnaires of TYT, four machine learning based classifiers were trained and analyzed. With respect to the provided daily answers, the gender of TYT users can be predicted with an accuracy of 81.7%. In this context, worries, difficulties in concentration, and irritability towards the family are the three most important characteristics for predicting the gender. Note that in contrast to existing studies on TYT, daily answers to the worst symptom question were firstly investigated in more detail. It was found that results of this question significantly contribute to the prediction of the gender of TYT users. Overall, our findings indicate gender-related differences in tinnitus and tinnitus-related symptoms. Based on evidence that gender impacts the development of tinnitus, the gathered insights can be considered relevant and justify further investigations in this direction. KW - computer science KW - machine learning KW - psychology KW - signs and symptoms Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-261753 VL - 11 IS - 1 ER -