Content area
Full Text
Purpose: The aim of this study was to establish reliability and validity for self-ratings of vocal status obtained during the daily activities of patients with vocal hyperfunction (VH) and matched controls.
Method: Eight-four patients with VH and 74 participants with normal voices answered 3 vocal status questions-difficulty producing soft, high-pitched phonation (D-SHP); discomfort; and fatigue-on an ambulatory voice monitor at the beginning, 5-hr intervals, and the end of each day (7 total days). Two subsets of the patient group answered the questions during a 2nd week after voice therapy (29 patients) or laryngeal surgery (16 patients).
Results: High reliability resulted for patients (Cronbach's a = .88) and controls (a = .95). Patients reported higher D-SHP, discomfort, and fatigue (Cohen's d = 1.62-1.92) compared with controls. Patients posttherapy and postsurgery reported significantly improved self-ratings of vocal status relative to their pretreatment ratings (d = 0.70-1.13). Within-subject changes in self-ratings greater than 20 points were considered clinically meaningful.
Conclusions: Ratings of D-SHP, discomfort, and fatigue have adequate reliability and validity for tracking vocal status throughout daily life in patients with VH and vocally healthy individuals. These questions could help investigate the relationship between vocal symptom variability and putative contributing factors (e.g., voice use/rest, emotions).
t is believed that diagnoses related to vocal hyperfunction (VH; true vocal fold nodules, polyps, and muscle tension dysphonia) are caused by or associated with aberrant vocal behaviors in daily life (Hillman, Holmberg, Perkell, Walsh, & Vaughan, 1989). Typical daily variation in the vocal status of patients with hyperfunction-related voice disorders has been attributed to a number of factors including amount of voice use/recovery (Nanjundeswaran, Jacobson, Gartner-Schmidt, & Abbott, 2015; Solomon, 2008), levels of emotional stress (Dietrich, Andreatta, Jiang, Joshi, & Stemple, 2012; Dietrich, Verdolini Abbott, Gartner-Schmidt, & Rosen, 2008), and presence/absence of conditions that degrade vocal function (e.g., hydration, reflux; Chung et al., 2009). One-time, in-clinic surveys of patient self-reported vocal status support the assumption that patients with VH spend significantly more time in pathological vocal states such as higher levels of vocal fatigue, discomfort in the head/neck, and lower levels of functional voice use (Hogikyan & Sethuraman, 1999; Jacobson et al., 1997; Nanjundeswaran et al., 2015). However, these surveys are prone to recall biases, which can be especially strong when...