Levels of anxiety and impacts on voice: a literature review

Abstract

The aim of this article is to perform a systematic review about anxiety and its impacts on voice. The research was conducted in three databases: PubMed, SciELO and LILACS. To this end, we used the descriptors: “Anxiety”, “Voice”, “Voice Disorders” and “Dysphonia”, as well as their equivalents in Portuguese, in the period from January to March 2015. We found 382 articles and only eight met the eligibility criteria. The studies were analyzed in relation to objectives, type of study, methods of evaluation of anxiety, methods of evaluation of voice, statistical analysis of the data, the main results found, association between voice and anxiety, characteristics of the study population, year of publication and country where there was developed the study. The selected studies showed the predominance of crosssectional study, published in Portuguese and in the year 2007. In accordance with the methods used for evaluation of anxiety and vocals, there were employed nine different types of evaluation for voice and nine for anxiety. Finally, all the articles presented an association between voice and anxiety. It is important to highlight the increased number of researches involving voice and anxiety in scientific productions, especially in Brazil. It was also observed that the high anxiety influences on the vocal characteristics and the quality of life of the population surveyed.