The Study
Predictors of Tinnitus Symptom Relief With Hearing Aids in a European Multicenter Study
This study found that people who wore hearing aids felt less bothered by their tinnitus after 12 weeks, but it doesn't prove the hearing aids caused the improvement—maybe people just felt better because they expected to. We can say hearing aids are linked to feeling better, but not that they definitely fix tinnitus.
Analysis score
Maximum 90 for a randomized controlled trial.
Where the score came from
Wearing hearing aids doesn't make the ringing in your ears quieter, but it can make you feel less bothered by it — like turning down the emotional volume, not the sound volume.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 549 / 100
Quality score
Participants are randomly assigned to treatment or control groups, minimizing bias. The gold standard for testing whether an intervention causes an effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — a drop of 11–13 points on these scales is considered clinically meaningful, meaning most people felt noticeably better in daily life, even though the ringing stayed the same volume.
- 2After 6 weeks of wearing hearing aids, people felt 11.64 points less distressed on the tinnitus scale and 12.80 points less impaired on the functional scale — but the loudness of the ringing didn't change at all.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
Ear & Hearing
Year
2025
Authors
Tabea Schiele, B. Boecking, A. Nyamaa, S. Psatha, S. Schoisswohl, J. Simões, J. Dettling-Papargyris, Javier Aguirre, Nikos Markatos, R. Cima, J. Lopez-Escamez, Veronika Vielsmeier, D. Kikidis, W. Schlee, B. Langguth, Birgit Mazurek, Steven C. Marcrum
Related Content
Claims (6)
Hearing aids increase the volume of external sounds but do not lessen the ringing sensation associated with tinnitus.
Adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss and chronic tinnitus experience less distress from tinnitus when using hearing aids, regardless of whether the hearing aids are fitted using the NAL-NL2 or DSL v.5 prescription method.
Using hearing aids for 12 weeks does not make tinnitus sound quieter to people with chronic tinnitus and mild-to-moderate hearing loss, even though it reduces how bothered they feel by it.
People who use hearing aids experience less distress from tinnitus within six weeks, and their improvement stops increasing after that point, even if they continue using the devices for up to twelve weeks.
Adults with chronic tinnitus and mild-to-moderate hearing loss who use properly fitted hearing aids daily for 12 weeks experience a measurable decrease in tinnitus-related distress, as shown by standardized scores, but their perception of tinnitus loudness does not change.
For adults with chronic tinnitus and mild-to-moderate hearing loss, the amount of hearing loss, how often the tinnitus occurs, how long hearing aids are worn each day, and how well the hearing aids are fitted do not determine how much tinnitus distress decreases after 12 weeks of use.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.