Summary
Background
Hindu priests (purohits/purohits/) perform religious services, rites, and prayers
primarily at the temples, during which there is a continuous recitation of shlokas,
ʃlokas, and mantras/mæntrəs/ in a loud voice. Hence, the voice is the primary component
of priests' profession and earning for livelihood. The present study was conducted
to explore the prevalence and possible risk factors, and the impact of voice problems
(VPs) in Hindu temple priests.
Methods
This cross-sectional survey was conducted by distributing the self-reporting questionnaires
to 140 Hindu temple priests in and around the Udupi/uɖupi/ and Mangaluru/maŋgalu:ru/
districts of Karnataka state, India, between January and April 2016.
Results
The Hindu temple priests were found to have high career (43%) and point (19%) prevalence
rates of VP. The length of work experience as a priest (>10years), modification of
voice during chanting, speaking or chanting in the presence of throat infection, and
experiencing dry mouth and throat were some of the risk factors found to have a significant
association with high prevalence of self-reported VPs in priests. Around 43% of the
priests missed their work at least 2–3 days because of VP.
Conclusions
Overall, the results of this study reveal a high prevalence of self-reported VPs in
Hindu priests and suggest that VPs are associated with different risk factors. Further
studies are needed to focus on understanding the impact of VPs and to develop awareness
about preventive vocal measures in this population.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 07, 2018
Accepted:
March 28,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
