Summary
Objectives
The vocal tract discomfort scale is a self-rating seven-point Likert scale that quantifies
frequency and severity of eight qualitative descriptors including burning, tight,
dry, aching, tickling, sore, irritable, and lump in the throat, and ranges from 0
(never/none) to 6 (always/extreme; Mathieson et al. 2009). The objectives of the current
study were to compare the vocal tract discomfort scale results between elementary
school teachers and high school teachers and between male and female teachers using
the Persian vocal tract discomfort scale. Also, teachers in different age ranges and
with different experiences were compared regarding vocal tract discomfort symptoms.
Methods
The researchers chose 20 elementary and high schools by simple random sampling in
Khorramabad, Iran. The survey was given to available teachers of the selected schools.
Considering the inclusion criteria, required sample size, and after excluding questionnaires
that were not correctly answered, 120 were selected such that 30 were chosen for each
subgroup. Subjects consisted of 60 elementary school teachers (30 females and 30 males)
with the mean age of 40.92 years (standard deviation = 6.07) and 60 high school teachers
(30 females and 30 males) with the mean age of 40.67 years (standard deviation = 6.00).
SPSS 25 was used for analyzing the data.
Results
Results indicated that the frequency and severity of the vocal tract discomfort in
elementary school teachers were significantly higher than for the high school teachers
with a medium to large effect size. Although the frequency and severity of the symptoms
were higher in female compared with male teachers, those differences were not significantly
different. Younger teachers had lower frequency and severity ratings of vocal tract
discomfort symptoms than older teachers. Teaching experience was not an important
factor in predicting vocal tract discomfort symptoms in teachers.
Conclusions
The results of this study suggest that there is higher frequency, greater severity,
and higher percentages of vocal tract discomfort symptoms in elementary compared with
high school teachers. In addition, although the mean frequency and severity of vocal
tract discomfort symptoms were not significantly different between females and males,
females reported higher percentages of the symptoms. Because each of the eight vocal
tract symptoms was experienced at the time of testing by between 42% (tightness) and
68% (dryness) of the participants, it is suggested that an educational program regarding
vocal tract discomfort may be helpful for this profession.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 14, 2021
Accepted:
November 16,
2020
Identification
Copyright
© 2020 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
