Investigating the relationship between the VHI scores and the acoustic parameters in patients suffering from voice disorder

Abstract

Introduction:Voice disorders, in general,have various psychological, physiological, anatomical andfunctional causes and may result inthe disruption ofdifferent aspects of the affected individual’s daily life. Considering the fact that people’s personality, occupation and perception ofa disorder can affect the quality of their lives;the aim of this study was to investigate the effect ofvoice disorders’ symptoms on patients’ life quality. Materials and Methods: The participants in this study were 40 patients suffering from variousvoice disorders, who were referred to the speech therapy clinics.After obtaining voice samples through asking the subjects to sustain the vowel /a/ for ten seconds; theVHI test was completed by them. The voice sampleswere analyzedvia the inbuilt Dr.Speech’ssoftware, Voice Analyst.The calculated mean values of acoustic parameters were then statically compared with the VHI test scoresvia Pearson’s correlation coefficient using SPSS software. Results: There was a significant relationship between both signal-to-noise ratio and harmony-to-noise ratio acoustic parameters and all obtained the scores of VHI test. Also, the standard deviation of the fundamental frequency and the scale’stotal score, the physical and functional subscales scores, andthe total as well as the physical subscale scoresand the acoustic parameter of shimmer was significantly correlated. Conclusion: In this study, there was either no significant or, at best, a week correlation between VHI scores and measured acoustic values. This is probably due to those factors affecting patient’s attitude toward disability including his/her personality, pervious experience regarding voice functions, occupational and social status, and disorder’s course of progress. Keywords: Voice handicap index (VHI), Acoustic parameters, Emotional subscale of VHI, Functional subscale of VHI, Physical subscale of VHI