Perception of Voice Problems between Treatment-seeking Dysphonic Teachers and Non-teachers

This study investigated the perception of voice impairments between voice treatment seeking teachers and non-teachers. One hundred and ten dysphonic participants including 28 teachers and 62 non-teachers were recruited consecutively at three local voice clinics. The 110 participants included females and males, and teachers and non-teachers. The participants completed the Voice Activity and Participation Profile (VAPP, Ma & Yiu, 2001) to evaluate the perception of their voice problems. Acoustic and perceptual voice analyses were carried out to evaluate voice impairment severity. Results revealed that dysphonic teachers perceived similar degrees of voice severity, activity limitations and participation restrictions as dysphonic non-teachers. However, their voice impairment severity, as judged from perceptual evaluation, was significantly better than the dysphonic non-teachers. The results suggested that teachers with voice problems found voice impairments had greater impact on activity limitation and participation restriction than dysphonic non-teachers. As occupation may be one of the factors that affect the perception of voice impairment, when assessing or treating patients with voice problems, occupation of the patients should be taken into attention besides voice impairments. Voice activity limitations and voice participation restrictions of the patients should also be noticed so that the needs of the patients can be targeted and the patients are treated holistically. 3 Running head: PERCEPTION OF VOICE PROBLEMS IN DYSPHONIC TEACHER