Summary
Objectives
To assess the effects of the longterm-use of surgical face mask (SFM) on acoustic
and auditory-perceptual voice parameters in normophonic subjects without any known
risk factor related to voice disorders.
Materials and Methods
Of 73 normophonic subjects who were previously included in a couple of studies before
the COVID-19 outbreak, 25 people (18 female and 7 male) who were free of any known
risk factor related to voice disorders during the outbreak were re-evaluated to assess
the long-term effect of SFM on voice by using acoustic (mean F0, Jitter-local, Shimmer-local,
Cepstral Peak Prominence (CPP), Noise to Harmonic Ratio (NHR), maximum phonation time
(MPT)) and auditory-perceptual (Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice
(CAPE-V)) parameters and those data found in SFM period were compared with the previous
(preSFM) data. MPT and acoustic data were analyzed by PRAAT software.
Results
It was seen that the mean F0 value presented a significant increase, while Jitter-local
and Intensity values revealed a significant decrease in females after 2 years pass
with SFM use (average 22.52 ± 0.18 months).In males, only a significant decrease in
Jitter-local was detected.
Conclusions
This study is the first longitudinal investigation on the effects of SFM use on acoustic
and auditory-perceptual measures of voice. The data in this study, revealed that long-term
use of SFM would not appear to be negatively affecting the acoustic parameters of
the voice in normophonic subjects (particularly females) without any related risk
factors such as tobacco use, reflux, and etc.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 11, 2023
Accepted:
February 3,
2023
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
