Spectrographic voice measures, vocal complaints and occupational data of elementary school teachers

Abstract

Introduction: Occupational voice disorders in teachers are common and are associated with physical, social, environmental, organizational and psychological factors. Objective: To describe and correlate spectrographic voice measures, presence of vocal complaints and occupational data of elementary school teachers. Material and method: Sectional study of quantitative character attended by 98 teachers, aged between 20 and 60 years (mean 37.93 years). There were collected the sustained vowel /a/, which was submitted to spectrographic vocal analysis on narrowband and wideband for Real Time Spectrogram of Kay Pentax® program. Data were analyzed by ANOVA and Pearson correlation tests, adopting a significance level of 5%. Results: Teachers without vocal complaints had drawn more regular in spectrographic narrowband filter; there is a positive correlation between the time of practice and the presence of noise between the harmonics and the darkening of the stroke in high-frequency and throughout spectrogram narrowband. Conclusion: The teachers who had no vocal complaints showed spectrogram route more defined, also causing increase in noise between the harmonics and darkening of stroke at high frequencies and around spectrogram with increasing the time of practice, suggesting that the narrowband spectrogram can be used as a complement to differentiate teachers with and without voice complaints and that the time of practice of teaching with their idiosyncrasies and without the proper working conditions of vocal health can lead to the presence of disorder in voice quali