Investigation of the Relationship Between Vocal Fatigue, Quality of Life, and Compliance With Vocal Hygiene in Professional Voice Users.

PURPOSE: Intensive voice use may lead to the development of voice disorders or voice complaints, such as vocal fatigue, for professional voice users (teachers, academics, call center workers, actors, singers, speech and language therapists, voice trainers, and religious officials). Vocal fatigue has a detrimental effect on occupational, emotional, and social performance, besides the quality of life of the individual. The effect of voice hygiene interventions on voice fatigue is not fully known. The results of studies conducted with different occupational groups are inconsistent. The present study aims to analyze the relationship between vocal fatigue and voice-related quality of life (V-RQOL) in professional voice users, and the impact of vocal hygiene on vocal fatigue. METHODS: Participants (24 male, 90 female), who were professional voice users without any diagnosis of voice disorders or voice complaints were divided into two groups low vocal hygiene compliance (LVH; n = 66) and high vocal hygiene compliance (HVH; n = 48). In this study, vocal fatigue was measured by the vocal fatigue index (VFI), and V-RQOL was measured by the voice handicap index (VHI-10) and V-RQOL. RESULTS: VFI subscales (tiredness, avoidance, physical discomfort) have a moderate positive correlation with VHI-10 and V-RQOL, which indicates that there is a significant relationship between vocal fatigue and quality of life amongst professional voice users. While there was no significant difference between the LVH and HVH groups in terms of quality of life, it was found that the vocal fatigue level of the LVH group was higher. CONCLUSION: This study of professional voice users with healthy voices reveals a relationship between vocal fatigue and V-RQOL. Vocal hygiene compliance may affect professional voice users' vocal fatigue symptoms; the low-compliant group has higher levels of tiredness, avoidance, and physical discomfort. The findings highlight the importance of raising awareness of the problems of professional voice users, even though they have healthy voices and the need for vocal hygiene education programs that target them.

The Turkish Version of the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V): A Reliability and Validity Study.

OBJECTIVE: The Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) was developed to assess voice quality. The aim of this study was to develop a Turkish adaptation of CAPE-V and to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Turkish version. METHODS: To adapt the CAPE-V protocol to Turkish, six sentences were constructed to meet the phonetic requirements. The validity of the Turkish version of the CAPE-V was tested with inter-rater reliability, intrarater reliability, and GRBAS versus the CAPE-V judgments. Ninety-nine dysphonic and 83 healthy subjects were enrolled. RESULTS: High inter-rater and intrarater reliability (ICC > 0.88, r > 0.81, respectively) were obtained for all vocal parameters. The differences in the six CAPE-V parameters between healthy and dysphonic subjects were statistically significant (P < 0.0001). The correlations between CAPE-V and GRBAS scales were high in overall severity-grade and roughness parameters (r = 0.85, r = 0.82, respectively), the lowest correlation was the strain parameter (r = 0.66). CONCLUSION: The Turkish version of CAPE-V is a reliable and valid instrument for auditory-perceptual evaluation of the Turkish speaking population.

Acoustic Voice Analysis of Young Turkish Speakers.

OBJECTIVE/HYPOTHESIS: One of the objective assessments of voice is acoustic analysis, particularly, the parameters fundamental frequency (F0), jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio (NHR). Because the normative data for healthy native Turkish male and female speakers are lacking in the literature, this study aimed to obtain F0, perturbation parameters, and NHR in three sustained vowels (/Λ/, /i/, and /u/) among young Turkish speaking adults. METHODS: The native Turkish speakers with normal voice aged between 18 and 32 years were included in the study (44 women, 39 men). Voice samples were recorded using Computerized Speech Lab, and data were analyzed with the statistics software SPSS Statistics 21.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA). RESULTS: The F0 values of vowels /Λ/, /i/, and /u/ were greater for women (239.78 Hz, 251.97 Hz, and 250.29 Hz, respectively) than for men (127.11 Hz, 137.23 Hz, and 134.15 Hz, respectively). All shimmer values for all vowels and jitter values for /Λ/ and /u/ were found significantly low in men; however, no difference was found for jitter values of /i/ between genders. There is no effect of gender on NHR. Only in women, NHR of high vowels was found to be lower than that of vowel /Λ/. CONCLUSIONS: There is a significant difference for F0 values between the genders as expected. Comparisons of perturbation values were significantly different for some pairs of vowels. There was no significant difference between NHR values between the genders. These findings can be compared with Turkish speakers who have different voice disorders for the further studies.