Accuracy of Self-Reported Estimates of Daily Voice Use in Adults With Normal and Disordered Voices

Abstract

Purpose Accurate estimation of daily patterns of vocal behavior is essential to understanding the role of voice use in voice disorders. Given that clinicians currently rely on patient self-report to assess daily vocal behaviors, this study sought to assess the accuracy with which adults with and without voice disorders can estimate their amount of daily voice use in terms of phonation time. Method Eighteen subjects (6 patients, 6 matched members of a control group without voice disorders, 6 low voice users) wore the accelerometer-based Ambulatory Phonation Monitor (APM; model 3200, KayPENTAX, Montvale, NJ) for at least 5 workdays. Subjects were instructed to provide hourly self-reports of time spent talking using a visual analog scale. Spearman correlation coefficients and errors between self-reported and APM-based estimates of phonation time revealed subject- and group-specific characteristics. Results A majority of subjects exhibited a significant bias toward overestimating their phonation times, with an average absolute error of 113%. Correlation coefficients between self-reported and APM-based estimates of phonation time ranged from statistically nonsignificant to .91, reflecting large intersubject variability. Conclusions Subjects in all 3 groups were moderately accurate at estimating their hourly voice use, with a consistent bias toward overestimation. The results support the potential role that ambulatory monitoring could play in improving the clinical assessment of voice disorders.

Gender differences in vocal doses among occupational voice users: a systematic review of literature and meta-analysis

“…Most studies (n ¼ 9) were among teachers (school, elementary, high school, and college) [27,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. In total, 10 articles reported vocal dose measures using a voice dosimeter during working-days (inside working environment) [35][36][37][38][39][43][44][45][46][47], five articles presented results on comparison of working-days and non-working-days [27,28,40,41,48], and one article reported results on a comparison pre-post treatment for occupational voices users [47]. Fundamental frequency (fo) was included in 10 articles [27,28,35,[37][38][39][40]44,48,49] and vocal intensity was mentioned in eight articles [28,[35][36][37][38][39]44,48].…”

“…Fundamental frequency (fo) was included in 10 articles [27,28,35,[37][38][39][40]44,48,49] and vocal intensity was mentioned in eight articles [28,[35][36][37][38][39]44,48]. The time dose percentage or phonation time (%) was reported in all 16 articles [27,28,[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][43][44][45][46][47][48][49], cycle dose in five papers [27,37,39,44,47], distance dose in six manuscripts [27,35,37,39,44,47], energy dissipation dose was presented in three articles [27,35,40], and radiated energy dose was reported in two publications …”

Parámetros vocales para definir la severidad de una disfonía

“…Por último, es importante medir de manera objetiva la autopercepción vocal de la disfonía por parte del paciente [34,35]. Para ello se han creado diferentes instrumentos de autorreporte [11,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42] que permiten identificar la apreciación del sujeto sobre sus cualidades vocales y el grado de dificultad que observa a la hora de realizar tareas y actividades cotidianas [43][44][45].…”

Vocal Behavior in Environmental Noise: Comparisons Between Work and Leisure Conditions in Women With Work-related Voice Disorders and Matched Controls

“…To understand the origin of the voice disorder, a reliable estimation of how much, and how, the voice is used is needed (Vilkman, 2004). The validity and reliability of the self-ratings by patients with work-related voice disorders have, however, been disputed since occupational voice users may lack awareness of how much they talk and of fluctuations in voice symptoms over time (Bastian, Keidar, & Verdolini-Marston, 1990;Karnell et al, 2007;Mehta, Cheyne, Wehner, Heaton, & Hillman, 2016). Furthermore, subjective symptoms, e.g., vocal fatigue and hoarseness, have not been found to correlate significantly with instrumentally measured voice data, e.g., fo and voice SPL (Laukkanen, Ilomaki, Leppanen, & Vilkman, 2008;Lehto et al, 2008).…”